Really successful businesses are able to make you pay for the service, PLUS sell your data (or eyeballs). See the publishing industry (up until about 1999) and television.
You're correct, but the problem with Facebook is that it needs you to share lots of information in order for them to sell it to others. It's well known that opt-in services, whilst being great for consumer privacy, typically have a lousy take-up rate. I'm amazed at the number of people who have completely open profiles, probably because they didn't know that they were like that.
Therefore it is in Facebook's interest (and their bottom line) to ensure that you have to opt-out and preferably in a way which is convoluted enough to make you not bother but not so convoluted that they're accused of being evil*.
Their goal of helping your connect with friends has long gone as the functionality available today is more than adequate for that purpose. All new features added in the last year or two are solely geared around you sharing more information that can be sold.
(* with the exception of Facebook Places, which they've blatantly decided that you cannot block check-ins from your friend stream without completely blocking the friend - presumably in the hope that you'll be persuaded to actually use the service)
Then does Apple plan to provide a tool to automatically translate the back-end of an existing application written in Java into Objective-C so that it can be used as a first-class citizen on Mac OS X 10.7?
Doubtful as it gives no real incentive for developers to shift to Objective-C (as they'll just continue to develop in Java and convert to Objective-C prior to release).
I could be wrong, but if I'm right then this would at least be consistent with their reason on why they didn't accept iOS submissions developed in Flash and then converted into Objective-C.
And why do you think Apple wouldn't give their code-base to Oracle?
I don't think they will because I believe that Apple would rather developers use Objective-C over Java for OSX development for the very same reasons they would rather developers use Objective-C over Flash for iOS development.
It looks like Apple are taking another small step towards making OSX more like iOS with their "you can only develop your applications in these approved languages" rule.
Sure, there is currently nothing to stop people downloading and installing Java on OSX, but this makes it just that little bit more painful to install a Java app for the end user over, say, a native application.
Personally I avoid running anything in Java on the basis that I don't want a honking great JVM just for one app. Oh and that the JVM has an annoying tendency to want to update itself a little too often for my liking.
Apple has to approve every OS X application? Since when has this been true? Oh wait you're talking about iOS which is a different area than their desktop. And BTW, MS has decided to used the walled garden approach with Windows Phone 7 so your point is moot.
Whilst your point is correct, it's worth noting that iOS gives you a window into a world that Apple wants - your computer is merely an appliance and the experience is completely controlled by Apple. I have no doubt that if they could do the same for OS X and get away with it then they would. The problem is that their (already minimal) desktop market share would tank if they tried that trick.
Bear in mind that when the iPhone first launched, they provided absolutely no way for people to officially run applications on the device - instead wanting people to develop web applications. The App Store may be a huge success but if it wasn't for people hacking the phones for native development and encouraging Apple to open up that avenue, it may never have happened.
Existing motherboards utilizing BIOS (non-UEFI), GPT ready operating systems like Windows 7 64-bit, and appropriate storage class drivers, can address the entire capacity of hard drives larger than 2.19TB.
If I stick one of these 3TB monsters into a NAS (as opposed to using the SATA cable directly into the computer), will Windows XP and Windows 7 32-bit be able to access the contents just fine - or will they too be stuck at 2.19TB until the patch is applied?
Re:Because they are huge and have tons of cash
on
Why Microsoft?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Microsoft makes you part of their community, Apple does not, everything is segmented and you have no access to other's information.
Another thing to consider is the country you live in and what influence it has on the product design and development.
I know of quite a few people who work in big US-centric organisations (but are based outside of the US) and although they have a job title that implies that they have responsibilities, they really are only performing a sales/account management role and have to report back to someone in the US who really makes the decisions.
I worked on the launch of a mobile phone a couple of years ago where we found out more about the product from the pages of Engadget than we did from the product team at that very company. It turned out that they didn't find out any information internally until the last minute - when often it had already been leaked throughout the internet and be seen by their clients.
I understood exactly what configuration you were using the first time, I was just telling you the history of how the project started.
I'd still be interested to see if you prefer browsing using the classic lite version of the site over the link I gave you. It may be that the experience is "good enough" not to need AvantSlash any more.
No offence taken. When AvantSlash was written the PDA version of the website was dire and rendered very poorly on mobile phones, hence why it was developed.
Can you do me a favour? Try using this public version of AvantSlash on your iPhone for a week and afterwards let me know whether you think that it is a better experience to that of using the classic version.
For those of you who want to read Slashdot on your Kindle, I've been told by a couple of people that AvantSlash renders it reasonably well. One day the flaws in the mobile version of Slashcode will be addressed and we won't need to use something like this to read Slashdot on the go.
As soon as I get my hands on a Kindle, then I'll make any updates to get it to look better but that won't be probably until after Christmas. Patches always welcome though.
Assuming this is true, it'll be interesting to see who will back down when it comes to customising the handset. You don't need me to tell you that Verizon are notoriously bad at modifying a device to suit their ends and that Apple are unrepentant that the experience of the iPhone should not be compromised by the whims of a carrier.
However Apple's growth in the US isn't really doing so well as it used to and any meaningful increase in market share will need to come from new operators. Now you could argue that Apple isn't about market share but revenue and whilst that is true, the last thing they want is developers defecting to Android because it gives them a larger target. Apple have been lucky that Google haven't really been on the ball with the Android Market. It still isn't available in many major countries and the user experience (especially when it comes to finding new content) isn't the best. However Google will eventually sort this out.
We may all joke about Ballmer jumping up and down yelling "Developers! Developers!" but he was right. If iOS starts losing its shine then Apple will need to find other ways to encourage people to continue developing for them. One of those has been to relax the restrictions and make it clearer for developers to understand the accreditation process - although sadly, I think this may have been more a case of fending off pending lawsuits, rather than realising that they may be on the cusp of a backlash.
This lack of market-share in the US means that Apple need Verizon far more than Verizon needs Apple. Which puts Verizon in a far stronger negotiating position. If Apple capitulate, then other operators may see this as an open invitation to try and push their requirements on Apple for future devices. In a future like this, iOS would suffer in the same way Android has, that is the carriers dictating the user experience.
Nevertheless, it's worth considering what it might mean to have a robust OS like Apple's on the same tablet as one that runs a cutting-edge operating system like Chrome OS. Why wouldn't users love that?
A dual booting iPad with Chrome OS would essentially give you... a second browser.
I'm not sure what there is to get excited about. The iPad one is pretty damn good, also uses WebKit and you get a bunch of other functionality thrown in for free - some of which is rather useful - without having to be permanently connected to the internet.
Sure, but... come on... suspended, the DS has a battery life measured in *days*. How hard is it, really, to find an outlet during that time?
Well, as a casual gamer it can easily be days before it gets picked up again. The advantage of hibernation is that it wouldn't matter how long you left it. Plus, how on earth did you get days? I can barely manage 24 hours on sleep before the battery is gone:(
Meanwhile, to do as you propose, you'd suddenly need a large chunk of solid-state storage on the thing, which would increases the costs substantially.
Good point, but if handheld supports memory cards and there is enough space, it would be lovely if it dumped it onto that instead. Would avoid the problem with solid state storage costs.
I'd like to know if it has proper hibernation support. When you closed the screen, the current DS went into what could be best described as "sleep". Whilst it was quick to come out of, the battery life was shorter than when the device was off and if the power went, you lost everything before your last save.
Implementing a version of hibernate would increase the wake up time of the device - but in return mean that the battery life remains unaffected when it's off and even if the battery died, you could still charge it back up and be able to resume where you left off.
Of course, some people will suggest just charging it as soon as you get back home - but it penalises the casual gamer or someone (like me) that gets home and completely forgets.
So the blackmailer accidentally exposes the blackmail, and Sky is upset not because they've been working with a blackmailer but because the blackmail got out early. Classy.
I'm waiting for O2 to speak out on the matter.
They appear to have been so busy handing over customer details on bogus court orders that they completely forgot to collect the £13,107.00 that ACS:Law owes them.
I've never had an email account hacked before, so I'm pretty convinced that some phone app has leaked my account details (as it's the gmail account tethered to my phone).
The problem is that when you install an application, Android gives you a big long list of things that the app wants to do. Whilst it sounds like a great idea, it gives no context as to why it needs those features and you only have two choices - accept that the application can do everything or don't install it. It's far too easy to sneak something into that list without people realising.
In the future, the OS should prompt the user that an application wants to do something (eg. accessing your address book) at the point it wants to do it and let the use decide whether or not to allow it - with an option to say "Always do this for [blah]" where [blah] could be "accessing contacts". It has the nice side effect of forcing application developers to design an UI which tells customers what they are trying to do so that they don't hit the "Deny" button as soon as the alert appears.
That way, people can run applications, test them and even use them without having to subject all their data to the mercy of the developers.
Cards that will populate the mag-strip with transaction-specific codes each time. So you can type the code in, the guy at the restaurant can pick up the card with your ticket, and swipe it once.
It's called Dynamic Magstripe and is available now. One example of it is here.
In Europe, they are solving this problem by moving away from magstripe to chip-and-pin. This is for two reasons, you don't give your PIN out to anyone else and because the card never leaves your sight.
For example, when you pay for food at a restaurant, the server physically brings you the Point Of Sale terminal for you to insert your card, confirm the price and enter your PIN. This means that it's impossible for them to run off and make a copy of the card without you seeing it happen.
(I was in the US recently and did not like the fact that my credit card disappeared from my sight when I went to pay for the bill)
Another has several buttons and a display in place of the card's number. Only after entering a PIN is the magnetic stripe populated and the full card number revealed, and after a short time both go blank again for security
Another way to do this is use something like Visa CodeSure which gives you the ability to enter a PIN on the card so that dynamic passcodes can be created. Commercially available now too.
That's a rather good idea, I like it. Would also work for companies like O2 and Orange who also provide broadband.
Unfortunately it's been a while since I received quotes from femtocell manufacturers and back then they weren't cheap. Plus the people making the routers didn't have the experience to build such capability in.
The biggest problem with femtocells is that customers expect them to be free. This isn't unreasonable, after all they're paying a monthly fee to get a service and they expect that they can stand in the bathroom in their city centre flat and be able to make a call.
The problem is that building a business case for purchasing a tonne of femtocells and giving them away to customers for nothing isn't a pretty read and getting a director to sign off on such an endeavour has been tough.
They'd far rather that the money was spent solving the signal problems (which improves things for everyone, not just the femtocell owner - but at the cost of a slow resolution time) rather than publicly admit that their signal is rubbish in urban places and needs "boosting".
> Well, I am not sure that this is the right approach
Der... ya think?
Jamming cellular signals is a federal crime.
What a jackass.
Ahhh Slashdot, the only place where nerds can post smug smart ass responses to a suggestion and neatly avoid the real life consequences of being punched in the face for being such a dick.
In the US, you can apply to the FCC for a permit to operate a jammer. It may be worth a go although I have no idea how likely it is they'll grant you one.
And do the so-called data-hogs really burn through that much more data than everyone else? According to Belgian ISP Telenet, the answers are 'a lot' and 'yes, they can
I'd be interested to know how people can consume that much data! Assuming 1080p rips at 11GB a pop lasting 3 hours, you're looking at 251 movies or 754 hours worth of entertainment.
Assuming you don't work and you don't sleep then there are only 744 hours in the longest month! Assuming you're unemployed and you do sleep, then this puts this down to a "mere" 496 hours and you'd have to be watching them from the moment you wake up to the moment you fall asleep.
Even in a house of 4 people, that's still each person downloading 54 HD movies a month - how on earth can you watch that much in a month? Or find that many movies worth watching for that matter?
Slashdot Mirror
The reason I think an £849 Apple 11" Air is not a netbook is the same reason I think a £1,089 Sony 11" X-Series is not a netbook.
(hint: You can pick up a Windows 7 netbook for about £250)
You're correct, but the problem with Facebook is that it needs you to share lots of information in order for them to sell it to others. It's well known that opt-in services, whilst being great for consumer privacy, typically have a lousy take-up rate. I'm amazed at the number of people who have completely open profiles, probably because they didn't know that they were like that.
Therefore it is in Facebook's interest (and their bottom line) to ensure that you have to opt-out and preferably in a way which is convoluted enough to make you not bother but not so convoluted that they're accused of being evil*.
Their goal of helping your connect with friends has long gone as the functionality available today is more than adequate for that purpose. All new features added in the last year or two are solely geared around you sharing more information that can be sold.
(* with the exception of Facebook Places, which they've blatantly decided that you cannot block check-ins from your friend stream without completely blocking the friend - presumably in the hope that you'll be persuaded to actually use the service)
If you're not paying for the service, you are the product, not the customer.
Doubtful as it gives no real incentive for developers to shift to Objective-C (as they'll just continue to develop in Java and convert to Objective-C prior to release).
I could be wrong, but if I'm right then this would at least be consistent with their reason on why they didn't accept iOS submissions developed in Flash and then converted into Objective-C.
I don't think they will because I believe that Apple would rather developers use Objective-C over Java for OSX development for the very same reasons they would rather developers use Objective-C over Flash for iOS development.
It looks like Apple are taking another small step towards making OSX more like iOS with their "you can only develop your applications in these approved languages" rule.
Sure, there is currently nothing to stop people downloading and installing Java on OSX, but this makes it just that little bit more painful to install a Java app for the end user over, say, a native application.
Personally I avoid running anything in Java on the basis that I don't want a honking great JVM just for one app. Oh and that the JVM has an annoying tendency to want to update itself a little too often for my liking.
Whilst your point is correct, it's worth noting that iOS gives you a window into a world that Apple wants - your computer is merely an appliance and the experience is completely controlled by Apple. I have no doubt that if they could do the same for OS X and get away with it then they would. The problem is that their (already minimal) desktop market share would tank if they tried that trick.
Bear in mind that when the iPhone first launched, they provided absolutely no way for people to officially run applications on the device - instead wanting people to develop web applications. The App Store may be a huge success but if it wasn't for people hacking the phones for native development and encouraging Apple to open up that avenue, it may never have happened.
If I stick one of these 3TB monsters into a NAS (as opposed to using the SATA cable directly into the computer), will Windows XP and Windows 7 32-bit be able to access the contents just fine - or will they too be stuck at 2.19TB until the patch is applied?
Another thing to consider is the country you live in and what influence it has on the product design and development.
I know of quite a few people who work in big US-centric organisations (but are based outside of the US) and although they have a job title that implies that they have responsibilities, they really are only performing a sales/account management role and have to report back to someone in the US who really makes the decisions.
I worked on the launch of a mobile phone a couple of years ago where we found out more about the product from the pages of Engadget than we did from the product team at that very company. It turned out that they didn't find out any information internally until the last minute - when often it had already been leaked throughout the internet and be seen by their clients.
I understood exactly what configuration you were using the first time, I was just telling you the history of how the project started.
I'd still be interested to see if you prefer browsing using the classic lite version of the site over the link I gave you. It may be that the experience is "good enough" not to need AvantSlash any more.
No offence taken. When AvantSlash was written the PDA version of the website was dire and rendered very poorly on mobile phones, hence why it was developed.
Can you do me a favour? Try using this public version of AvantSlash on your iPhone for a week and afterwards let me know whether you think that it is a better experience to that of using the classic version.
For those of you who want to read Slashdot on your Kindle, I've been told by a couple of people that AvantSlash renders it reasonably well. One day the flaws in the mobile version of Slashcode will be addressed and we won't need to use something like this to read Slashdot on the go.
As soon as I get my hands on a Kindle, then I'll make any updates to get it to look better but that won't be probably until after Christmas. Patches always welcome though.
Assuming this is true, it'll be interesting to see who will back down when it comes to customising the handset. You don't need me to tell you that Verizon are notoriously bad at modifying a device to suit their ends and that Apple are unrepentant that the experience of the iPhone should not be compromised by the whims of a carrier.
However Apple's growth in the US isn't really doing so well as it used to and any meaningful increase in market share will need to come from new operators. Now you could argue that Apple isn't about market share but revenue and whilst that is true, the last thing they want is developers defecting to Android because it gives them a larger target. Apple have been lucky that Google haven't really been on the ball with the Android Market. It still isn't available in many major countries and the user experience (especially when it comes to finding new content) isn't the best. However Google will eventually sort this out.
We may all joke about Ballmer jumping up and down yelling "Developers! Developers!" but he was right. If iOS starts losing its shine then Apple will need to find other ways to encourage people to continue developing for them. One of those has been to relax the restrictions and make it clearer for developers to understand the accreditation process - although sadly, I think this may have been more a case of fending off pending lawsuits, rather than realising that they may be on the cusp of a backlash.
This lack of market-share in the US means that Apple need Verizon far more than Verizon needs Apple. Which puts Verizon in a far stronger negotiating position. If Apple capitulate, then other operators may see this as an open invitation to try and push their requirements on Apple for future devices. In a future like this, iOS would suffer in the same way Android has, that is the carriers dictating the user experience.
I really hope Verizon don't win.
A dual booting iPad with Chrome OS would essentially give you ... a second browser.
I'm not sure what there is to get excited about. The iPad one is pretty damn good, also uses WebKit and you get a bunch of other functionality thrown in for free - some of which is rather useful - without having to be permanently connected to the internet.
Well, as a casual gamer it can easily be days before it gets picked up again. The advantage of hibernation is that it wouldn't matter how long you left it. Plus, how on earth did you get days? I can barely manage 24 hours on sleep before the battery is gone :(
Good point, but if handheld supports memory cards and there is enough space, it would be lovely if it dumped it onto that instead. Would avoid the problem with solid state storage costs.
I'd like to know if it has proper hibernation support. When you closed the screen, the current DS went into what could be best described as "sleep". Whilst it was quick to come out of, the battery life was shorter than when the device was off and if the power went, you lost everything before your last save.
Implementing a version of hibernate would increase the wake up time of the device - but in return mean that the battery life remains unaffected when it's off and even if the battery died, you could still charge it back up and be able to resume where you left off.
Of course, some people will suggest just charging it as soon as you get back home - but it penalises the casual gamer or someone (like me) that gets home and completely forgets.
I'm waiting for O2 to speak out on the matter.
They appear to have been so busy handing over customer details on bogus court orders that they completely forgot to collect the £13,107.00 that ACS:Law owes them.
... please do some editing! There is no need to link to another website when you can go directly to the source!
The problem is that when you install an application, Android gives you a big long list of things that the app wants to do. Whilst it sounds like a great idea, it gives no context as to why it needs those features and you only have two choices - accept that the application can do everything or don't install it. It's far too easy to sneak something into that list without people realising.
In the future, the OS should prompt the user that an application wants to do something (eg. accessing your address book) at the point it wants to do it and let the use decide whether or not to allow it - with an option to say "Always do this for [blah]" where [blah] could be "accessing contacts". It has the nice side effect of forcing application developers to design an UI which tells customers what they are trying to do so that they don't hit the "Deny" button as soon as the alert appears.
That way, people can run applications, test them and even use them without having to subject all their data to the mercy of the developers.
It's called Dynamic Magstripe and is available now. One example of it is here.
In Europe, they are solving this problem by moving away from magstripe to chip-and-pin. This is for two reasons, you don't give your PIN out to anyone else and because the card never leaves your sight.
For example, when you pay for food at a restaurant, the server physically brings you the Point Of Sale terminal for you to insert your card, confirm the price and enter your PIN. This means that it's impossible for them to run off and make a copy of the card without you seeing it happen.
(I was in the US recently and did not like the fact that my credit card disappeared from my sight when I went to pay for the bill)
Another way to do this is use something like Visa CodeSure which gives you the ability to enter a PIN on the card so that dynamic passcodes can be created. Commercially available now too.
http://www.visaeurope.com/en/about_us/innovation/visa_codesure.aspx
That's a rather good idea, I like it. Would also work for companies like O2 and Orange who also provide broadband.
Unfortunately it's been a while since I received quotes from femtocell manufacturers and back then they weren't cheap. Plus the people making the routers didn't have the experience to build such capability in.
But even so ... it's a nice idea.
The biggest problem with femtocells is that customers expect them to be free. This isn't unreasonable, after all they're paying a monthly fee to get a service and they expect that they can stand in the bathroom in their city centre flat and be able to make a call.
The problem is that building a business case for purchasing a tonne of femtocells and giving them away to customers for nothing isn't a pretty read and getting a director to sign off on such an endeavour has been tough.
They'd far rather that the money was spent solving the signal problems (which improves things for everyone, not just the femtocell owner - but at the cost of a slow resolution time) rather than publicly admit that their signal is rubbish in urban places and needs "boosting".
Ahhh Slashdot, the only place where nerds can post smug smart ass responses to a suggestion and neatly avoid the real life consequences of being punched in the face for being such a dick.
In the US, you can apply to the FCC for a permit to operate a jammer. It may be worth a go although I have no idea how likely it is they'll grant you one.
I'd be interested to know how people can consume that much data! Assuming 1080p rips at 11GB a pop lasting 3 hours, you're looking at 251 movies or 754 hours worth of entertainment.
Assuming you don't work and you don't sleep then there are only 744 hours in the longest month! Assuming you're unemployed and you do sleep, then this puts this down to a "mere" 496 hours and you'd have to be watching them from the moment you wake up to the moment you fall asleep.
Even in a house of 4 people, that's still each person downloading 54 HD movies a month - how on earth can you watch that much in a month? Or find that many movies worth watching for that matter?