Given how unstable this "currency" has been in the recent past, how can anyone set price points without needing hourly updates to make sure they get a consistent payment?
Right now it's valued at $730, 2 weeks ago it was $200 and a few months ago it crashed.
You cannot run a business with currencies this volatile.
You don't. You just adjust it to make it advantageous to you.
If it was $200 when you set the prices, and your course was $600, you charge 3 BTC for it. Who cares that it's $730 now? You still charge 3 BTC for it, and if anyone is dumb enough to pay it, well, bonus.
As for volatility in US dollars, well there's some, but it's not generally so highly variable one cannot count on it. Like how practically all Canadian retailers will take US dollars at par - sure it's been fluctuating between 1.05-1.07 CAD, but par is easier rather than trying to compute a discount.
Back when the US dollar was worth more, they'd post acceptance rates (usually discount percentages - the cashier would discount your bill by the posted rate if you paid in US dollars). But those changed daily at the worst, and were always at a premium until the store decided the new rates held steady enough to warrant changing it again.
What, you expect businesses to not screw you? It just works like any other currency. You have a widget you charge 2 BTC for, and it's 2 BTC regardless if the exchange rate is US$730/BTC or US$50/BTC.
And Galileo doesn't "send" signals from the car to the satellites. The car "receives" the current position from the satellites. So there's absolutely NOTHING in this that couldn't be done without Galileo (hell, we have GPS for a start!). And, to be honest, the easiest tax is just to tax petrol and diesel more.
You don't even need GPS to do that. Just use the odometer. It's how the US insurance trackers work - they don't have a GPS unit - they plug into the OBDII port and get the actual mileage from the car.
Even without electronic monitoring one can always just use the odometer - especially since most are electronic nowadays but even the old mechanical ones were anti-tamper as well.
There are a couple of parts of the flight where the pilot is required to use the automation. The biggest is during cruise in what's known as RVSM airspace, where the vertical separation minimums are reduced from what was standard before RVSM was implemented. There, if your autopilot quits, ATC will send you down below the RVSM floor. RVSM is in use above some altitude in the 48 states and on transAtlantic routes. (I don't recall the exact altitude.)
The other is in flying an instrument approach to very low altitudes, known as a category III approach. IIRC, those must be flown on autopilot in order to continue below category III minimums.
There's also RNP (Required Navigation Performance) approaches for aircraft that arrive to land - RNP approaches typically are shorter as they require a minimum navigation performance (triple GPS (all locked onto satellites and working properly), dual autopilots, a bunch of other equipment as well) which gives you approaches that instead of having to follow a long winding path of beacons in, let you cut to the chase and arrive at the airport in an orderly fashion. It can save easily 5-10 minutes of flying "the long way around" because RNP can take you closer and lower to terrain and provides more direct routing. A lot of approaches were designed to handle wider separations between aircraft as instruments are crude and imprecise.
Anyhow, the "good pilots" probably also maintain their own little Cessna or Piper single engine where basic flying skills get emphasized - typically for fun or recreational flying. (I recall a time when I was getting checked out in the "luxury" Cessna 172SP our flight school had - we used the autopilots, GPS and other things (because for the most part that's what the differences are), and the instructor said "Let's go home. Using whatever you want, get us back to the airport". Of course, it was a trick question - being at 1500' and only 10 minutes away, the answer was hand-fly it since there wasn't enough time to prepare the automation and do the required preparations).
Low-speed 1.8V and high-speed 0.5V LVDS mode, 800MHz... a MIPI-DSI display?:-)
Close. A MIPI CSI2 device actually. Used it before with a MIPI camera, though I was debugging using a HDMI-to-MIPI CSI2 bridge.
Scope used to see if the MIPI lines were toggling - and while I'd like a faster scope, 300MHz was sufficient for my needs (I only needed the general waveshape, I didn't care about bits). Low speed toggling is important as the CSI2 receiver PHY cannot operate with a continuous clock - it must transition to LP11 mode or things go horribly wrong.
Though, I also used it because the I2C bus sniffer I have only does 5V I2C, and I have 1.8V/3.3V I2C all over the place with no level shifter. It was however useful for the one 5V I2C bus I have.
For most digital work these days, you really just need a logic analyzer.
Having said that, if you are doing just about anything but "pure" digital work, do do pretty much need a scope.
It's fine for simple two level digital logic. You can get away with it if you're just diagnosing stuff you attach to an Arduino.
But modern digital electronics has a LOT of analog components. Heck, one interface I have has two modes - low speed and high speed. When in low-speed mode, it's a differential signal that goes between 0-1.8V. But when it transitions to high-speed mode, the signal levels go between 0-0.5V (the level being chosen so low-speed devices see nothing but logic 0). In proper operation, I have to see that the lines are going between low-speed and high-speed regularly to indicate that the device I'm working with is working just fine.
Hell, I only have a 300MHz scope on my desk. The clock signal in high speed mode is... 800MHz. But I didn't care - I just needed to see that the signal is transitioning to show it's probably working. Anything beyond that is now a software problem.
Heck, even ye olde humble 100bT Ethernet is basically an analog signal on the wire.
No doubt you can buy logical analyzers that can handle all these new signalling protocols, but the question is how much are you willing to pay because your logical analyzers are starting to go int the 5-6 figure price range.
However, there is another possible outcome: instead of pretending that people don't make mistakes, people don't have sex, people don't use drugs, people don't say "naughty" words - perhaps society will move to stop pretending about these things and then passing around a photo showing Joe hitting a bong won't be any more scandalous than passing around a photo showing that Joe has black hair. Some day it might even be possible to admit that Joe has a penis, without yelling "SHAME!" at him.
True. However, the problem is the fact that the internet is now an all knowing, never forgetting medium has evolved far faster than society has. In the past, societal norms typically evolved with the (lack of) privacy.
After all, if you lived in a small town where everyone knew everyone else, well, you really cannot do anything bad or gossip spreads, fast and the only option is to leave. The Internet has pretty much made that impossible - it turned the world into a "small town" and society hasn't evolved past the "everyone poops" stage
The only way to handle it right now is to not post anything online ("privacy settings" is just a marketing term to mean "give more information than you normally would, sucker!" - when in reality, it's best to treat anything online as visible to anyone and everyone)..
Of course, social networks are booming because they know everyone's a bit vain, and a braggart. Who doesn't want to have a photo of their latest gadget - they want to show off to the world because it's human nature to. Just like going on vacation - we all harbor a secret "ha ha suckers!" attitude towards others and want to show off how much "better off" we are.
Which is a boon to social networks, not so much to society. Hell, in the past we didn't bother taking photos of ourselves having sex with others, showing off our drunken stupidity, etc - we knew enough to not bother about forgettable moments.
To be honest, we're really all voyeurs inside as well.
what's the rationale behind giving them benefits? would they move away if they didn't? unlikely, really.
Apple is Cupertino's largest taxpayer by far.
In fact, Apple SPECIFICALLY CHOSE the site for their new building - Cupertino had no land available otherwise (it was land from an old Sun/HP campus, IIRC). So Apple had a choice - it could build its new building in Cupertino, or it could put it somewhere else. Cupertino gives Apple a small tax break (they don't give Apple any money - Apple pays more than that amount in taxes to Cupertino annually) as a thank you for being loyal to Cupertino. And it's likely the board sees that the added revenue from employees being there (from construction and all that to the sheer number of extra employees) to more than make up for the loss (after all, those people need to eat, like to frequent bars, etc. and Apple is likely needing to purchase local service to maintain the building and grounds and all that).
In fact, any large corporation wanting to put down roots can easily negotiate with the host city on benefits. I would expect Redmond to give Microsoft breaks in exchange for being in Redmond (though Microsoft's campus straddles the border, so there's a building that's actually odd because it has to be built to two different building codes as it straddles Redmond and a neighbouring city).
Likewise, Mountain View probably gives Google a few breaks as well.
And these cities are all known because of these big companies - anytime anyone mentions Redmond, well, up comes Microsoft. Cupertino has Apple, and Mountain View has Google.
Apple may not pull up its roots from Cupertino, but they can certainly decide to build in a neighboring city if they have to. The fact they're choosing Cupertino is really a preference for them - being nostalgic and all that. Hell, given all the difficulties Apple encountered, one may wonder if it was worth all that effort to build in Cupertino and not just build it nearby somewhere else.
Apple traditionally uses raw NAND flash for the phones - this gives them the advantage in that the controller is all theirs in the SoC and any performance issues likewise are in their control rather than use eMMC which you're dependent on the controller and flash array.
You can now buy SDXC cards that have 90MB/s transfer speeds, so it's not impossible that it's just high speed flash. SSDs on the other hand are capable of 400MB/s transfer speeds, 800MB/s if it's one of the new PCI-e devices found in the new MacBooks.
Just because the card can do 90MB/sec sequential doesn't mean it can do 90MB/sec random. In fact, a lot of faster SD cards are SLOWER for random reads and writes - they're optimized for high-speed sequential writes because the typical use case is to record high-def video (continuous writes), or handle a big dump of large photos. Very rarely would the device do a random read or write compared to the larger writes.
And then, there's stuff like what happened on the old Nexus 7 where it starts out great, but as you use it, performance degrades to the point where it's just lagging out.
Android's permission model is far from all or nothing, it is entirely declarative and applications do not have all permissions (as opposed to the iphone model in which the user is never told what the application can do).
Except to 99.99% of Android users, that permission information is completely useless to them. They don't know what it means, other than it's a screen that pops up whenever they install anything. They don't read it, they just tap Install and be done with it.
The technical term is Dancing Pigs (or dancing rabbits), and it describes basically that the user is most likely not pick the right choice security wise. They see an app in the Play store, tap install, then up comes the list of gobbledygook with a button that says "Install". They bypass the list and tap install, because they just wanted to install the app.
Relying on the user to make security decisions is poor security - all it affords you is the ability to blame the user for this mischoices, except said user is part of the very large majority who don't understand the screen, don't understand the need for it, and certainly don't understand why they need to spend the time reading it.
And that doesn't even get into the weird permissions you need in order to do stuff (like Read Phone State and Identity to get notifications when someone is calling).
The iPhone model isn't any better, but popping up extra dialogs doesn't work. Though, iOS at least does notify you and give you the ability to decline individual permissions (e.g., to stuff like location information, contacts and other stuff). But it too suffers from popup-it is.
Hell, the user can monkey around with some pretty complex steps if you tell them how to do it in small easy steps and they see benefit at the end. It's how they can do stuff like install OpenSSH, run PuTTY and enter in complex command lines - as long as they want to do it, they'll blindly follow. It's how the early jailbreak viruses spread - because people would do them to pirate apps and such and leave OpenSSH running with default passwords (because the HOWTO they used didn't tell them they needed to).
And I'm almost certain if you've helped someone tat they'll say something like "every time I print, nothing comes out of the printer" despite every time they print, a big screen shows saying "NO PAPER IN TRAY". No, they don't read dialogs either (happens with developers as well - the solution may be right there staring them in the face...).
To be fair, those were Fiskers which had acquired a reputation for catching fire if you look ta them wrong.
And no matter what they claim - it was a short in the 12 volt system that caused the fire. Something every car has, even the Tesla (it's used to run all the traditional 12V accessories in a car - ventilation, windows, lights, etc).
You expect consumers to care about privacy, but what does it cost him to care? You almost can't buy a decent TV these days that's not "smart". So he has to put a packet analyzer on the network port and figure out if the thing is phoning home?
I tell everyone that "Smart" TVs are worth $0 more. Because for the most part, they're useless - they'll work initially, but 6 months down the road, they'll be abandoned, Plus the Uis aren't usually terribly good. so the best thing to do is buy a decent TV. If it has Smart, don't bother using it - don't bother plugging in the Ethernet cable or buying the WiFi adapter - especially since media boxes like PS3s, Xbox360s, Rokus, AppleTVs, etc., etc., etc., all provide the same functionality with a nicer UI, are supported for far longer, and have convenience features like WiFi built in. And given the cost of the WiFi adapter for TVs, you can generally get the alternative for the same price or less.
Hell, and LG can't even do Neilson properly - their data is just self-selected LG TV owners who cared enough to plug in the network cable (only something like 1% of smart TVs actually are even connected to the Internet).
Back in the mid 90's, MacOS (Classic) was on its last legs and Apple was shopping around. One of the things they considered was purchasing Be, Inc., for BeOS (which was created by former Apple exec Jean-Louis Gassee).
Apple offered Be about $300M or so for it. Gassee, seeing that Apple was "desperate" and really wanted BeOS, held out for more. Apple got frustrated, and approached NeXT instead, and Jobs ended up making some very convincing arguments against BeOS. And Apple then acquired NeXT for a whopping $425M - nearly 50% more than the offer for Be (though they really also bought a bunch of other things - including Jobs).
Be eventually was acquired 5 years later when Gassee convinced the rest of the board of Palm Inc. to buy it... for $11M. But they were on the decline after basically calling Apple's bluff and seeing them go with NeXT and NeXT STEP rather than BeOS.
For what it's worth, I've read that Kinect 2 is enough of an in-house MS Research project that Primesense were not involved.
Not quite inhouse, but not PrimeSense either. Microsoft acquired a company that specialized in low-cost time-of-flight cameras and that's what's in the Kinect 2 (PrimeSense is based on structured light fields).
Or, in other words, Kinect 2 again messes with the 3D imaging companies by offering a low-cost time-of-flight 3D imager, something that would've cost easily hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Of course, you can't use the Xbone one in a PC yet - but Microsoft promises it will be out for Windows in 2014. Given the unsubsidized Kinect was $250, even if Kinect 2 was $300, that's still a mighty cheap 3D imager.
Until VERY recently, the AOSP camera app was pretty crippled compared to the camera apps that shipped with the phones insofar as things like HDR, anti-shake, etc. were concerned.
Still is, actually. Google's been slowly closed-sourcing a lot of Android in an attempt to thwart manufacturers using AOSP from shipping phones that work almost like, but without, Google. (Remember Android was purchased by Google because Google was worried Apple would turn the screws down on Google and iOS.). With stuff like the Kindle showing that AOSP is worthwhile, Google's been withholding new development on AOSP to favor official Android releases.
Those cheaper devices are more likely to be from manufacturers who don't care about implementing bullshit like HDCP. I'm assuming that Sony will be fully "compliant" there, and therefore only devices which comply fully with the standard would work. Maybe they also require a minimum version of the HDMI standard.
HDCP implementation is very easy for the hardware guys. Software wise it's even easier - you just usually toggle a few bits in a register (like clear HDCP keys, load HDCP keys, re-authenticate on event and interrupt mask). Just a few bits during initial initialization and you're done.
HDCP is almost always handled by the HDMI transmitter or receiver completely transparently - if you want it, you just buy the "HDCP" version of the chip. If not, you buy the "no HDCP" version of it. The only difference is whether or not there's a key pre-programmed in the silicon and a fuse that says whether or not to even attempt an HDCP negotiation.
Unless software specifically checks the part number (it's usually just a bit that says whether or not HDCP is supported), software needs to do zilch.
If you really wanted, you could simply replace the HDMI chip with a no-HDCP variant with little ill effect - the HDCP registers are there, they just don't do anything.
In the USA, most fires are started by human activity. But most BIG fires are started by lightning in remote areas. Fires started by humans are usually quickly reported and extinguished. Fires started by lightning can get too big to control before they are even detected. This satellite system would mostly help with the remote fires started by lightning.
Some big fires are started by humans too.
The interesting thing is, even with stuff like campfire bans, humans still cause the majority of forest fires - not usually due to illegal campfires, but because of cigarette butts. Drivers routinely toss the butts out the window where it lands in the grass and smoulders. Most of the time, the fire gets noticed and the fire brigade puts it out, but sometimes it takes a little while to be noticed and in that time they can grow fairly large.
Some urban forests during periods of dry weather ban campfires AND smoking for that very reason - smokers seem to fail to use ashtrays even when provided - preferring to toss the butt on the ground.
(Off topic - an interesting experiment is taking place in Vancouver, BC, where a recycling company has put up 110 cigarette butt recycling bins on practically every vertical pole downtown. The goal is to recycle them, but so far, butts on the ground are still fairly common).
The point is not to switch. Every one of the brands have nearly the same supply chain labor practices (do you think the Samsung device is made with labor conditions substantially different than an Apple device).
Actually it is. Samsung earlier this year had a leak of hydrofluoric (HF) acid that killed several of their workers and poisoned the environment. Of course, it's covered in a lot of places, but it barely made a ripple. As I recall, Samsung only had a small fine for that - something like $50k or so.
Basically the factories make your product the way you want it. If it's Apple, they'll follow the necessary rules (and charge accordingly) imposed as well as the necessary quality.
The same lines can make high quality electronics, then make cheap counterfeit electronics the next. So one day the workers can make Apple products with all the worker protections Apple demands. Of course, Apple is forced to pay for it. They can make cheap Samsung phones the next day to the quality and worker protections Samsung wants.
Of course, consoles are using bottom of the barrel components, assembly procedures and worker protections.
(Of course, for a customer like Apple, Foxconn will set up dedicated factories and lines to make Apple products. Smaller customers will just have to share lines)
If they'd say "Oh, we're gonna help the poor!" and then only launched those balloons over the stadiums - you'd have a point, but you're saying "How dare they _also_ use this idea for making profits!"
I think it's basically the idea that Google is better because they do this to "help the poor" and get the positive vibes from that, when in reality it's to make profit first, which are then used to help the poor.
It's like how GPL advocates always claim GPL is better than BSD because it prevents "closed sourcing" of the code. Yet said GPL advocates do the same thing, so they're claiming their license is better because it prevents "locking up the code" yet that is exactly what they do - lock up the code.
I was greatly dismayed to see how many apps expect access to my email, location and contacts directory, most with no need whatsoever for such information. I don't install a lot of apps. I'd rather develop them.
Well, it's usually for advertising because of Android's strange payment models make ads about the only way to make money. Sure they probably make some sense, but considering there's a variance in support for Google Wallet and especially in-app-purchases on a country level, an app developer who wants to make money and not bother with the different rules per country is best off giving it away for free and contracting Google to sell ads on it. (Unlike say, iOS where Apple apparently handles everything for you so you don't have to worry about sales taxes and surcharges and other stuff because Apple handled it).
Though, really, the Android prompt isn't that great - it's just doing a Dancing Pigs deal by popping it up, and most users will just tap "Install" anyways without even reviewing it. Or even noticing it.
Especially since a lot of people get app recommendations from friends and articles they read, so they want to try it out, and the extra dialog just means another tap to get past it. I'm surprised no one's made an extension that bypasses the screen - it would probably be extremely popular.
Buried somewhere on Progressive's website is a sob story of how for every $1 in premiums the car insurance industry collects, $1.02 is paid out in claims. Yet, every company seems to have a large advertising budget to drill in that they can save you "XX or more" on car insurance.
On the opposite end of things, there are car insurance companies that solely insure high risk drivers in some states. A friend of mine was dropped by a company because he was "too safe a driver". Yes, that was the official reason. Not surprising, a few months later the company went bust.
A lot (all?) of insurance premiums are invested by the company. That's how they can spend $1.02 for every $1 they collect. It also means your insurance premiums are a direct result of market conditions - if the stock market tanks, you can expect a hefty increase in your premium.
And yes, there are insurance companies that insure the uninsurable, because some drivers are so bad that no regular insurance company will insure them. Of course, you're also talking about hefty premiums - easily $3-4K a month, if not more. Yes, that's nearly $50K a year, Because it's mandatory to have insurance The lower end is already around $1K a month.
You would think such terrible drivers would get the hint and either find alternative means of transportation, or to sharpen up their driving skills... but apparently some people are that oblivious.
Consider the resources that Android takes up. If you have something that is this small, efficient and presumably stable and you need to build out a lot of very small factor devices (phones, ereaders, tablets, medical equipment) something like this would be a very good thing.
The issue is though that powerful CPUs are getting really cheap. Devices that don't need such power are finding themselves embedded GHz-class processors because that's the lowest end available that has sufficient power.
There's a gap between the 8-bit microcontrollers and the GHz-class processors these days, and it's widening - mostly because the cheapest SoCs are sporting high end cores and interfacing with really cheap RAM. Cheap enough that the mid-range ARM9s and ARM11 cores didn't save you a whole lot of money, and pretty much got squeezed out of the market.
Really. Check out the processors in the eReaders these days - they're easily hitting 800-1GHz in speed just to drive the e-ink display because that's the most cost-effective SoC. And they're swimming in 256MB+ in RAM, and really, the entire functionality takes just a tiny fraction of available resources.
Ditto with TVs - when the video processing SoC sports quad cores and all that, tossing in "smart tv" features is trivial because the power is there and there are few more moderate video processors.
I used my ps3 for media as well as occasional gaming. PS4 lack of streaming media support that does not originate from Sony's pay sites is a real minus for me. At least with the ps4 released, I can snap up used PS3 for media consoles in the bedrooms now.
For now.
One of the greatest things about the Xbox One and PS4 is they're keeping Microsoft and Sony honest. When Microsoft announced the draconian DRM scheme, Sony countered, causing Microsoft to completely rethink their DRM position. Of course, Sony did a few more thins to keep Microsoft on its toes.
And now, the day AFTER Sony gave out its big FAQ, Microsoft announced the Xbox One will support MP3s and DLNA. Which caused Sony to announce it was coming in a future update now. Heck, the whole "voice control" think was hastily implemented by Sony to counter the Xbone's Kinect, which is why it's a bit hokey on release.
PS4 fanboys can mock the Xbone, while Xbox fanboys can mock the PS4 all they want, and analystics can say "Sony wins", but in the end, it's better that we have the Xbone with the PS4 than either/or.
Sony can't revert to draconian DRM because they promised not to (and the Xbone can't, either).
Regardless of which console is "better" (remember, the PS3 outclasses the Xbox360) technically, the best thing is both do well enough that neither decides to leave, and that Nintendo remains as a spoiler.
Heck, if you want to remember what happened when Sony last thought it had the upper hand on everyone, see the news in the months leading up to the launch of the PS3. Now that Sony's a bit more humbled from that, hopefully things will be more interesting. Microsoft got a bit arrogant during the 360 era, so hopefully they'll be smacked down a bit and have to actually compete. But not too much - just enough to keep Microsoft from thinking it can get away with anything.
And hell, you have Apple to thank for screwing up the whole business model as well - Apple's approval process is really a very "lite" version of how one develops on consoles and it's forced Sony and Microsoft to rethink how they do development.
I never understood the reasoning behind that. I have never signed any of the card I've ever had.
If someone happens to gain possession of your card, do you also want to give them a template of your signature so they could practice their forgery?
Good luck getting a chargeback when the charge receipt has your signature on it. Fuck that.
Technically, it's not a comparison template.
The signature on the card signifies you agree to the terms and conditions of your cardholder agreement. I.e., it's the acceptance of those terms between you and the issuer.
The signature on the slip signifies you agree to pay the amount shown on the slip. It's a contract between you and the issuer that you agree to pay the amount shown on the slip.
If one or the other isn't signed, the merchant bank could easily not pay, since the card was not valid at the time of transaction.
Of course, over time it got perverted to people thinking it was a comparison template.
Legally, if it doesn't have a signature, or if it has anything other than a valid signature, the merchant has a right to destroy the card as it's invalid.
And in theory, if your card wasn't signed, you could chargeback all the charges on it since it was invalid. But good luck finding a court who'll agree to it on technicality terms.
It's the one problem I have with USB charging protocol - there isn't any. There's no way for the device to detect anything other than "a charger is connected" - which leaves a lot up in the air. Is it a 500mA charger? 800mA (initial USB charging spec basically said you could assume 800mA)? 1A? 2A? More?
Now, your device COULD try to ramp up the charging current draw and see if it can find the "knee" where the charger output drops as it goes into constant-current mode. However, there are plenty of crappy barely adequate chargers out there that would probably smoke, overheat, catch fire, etc., as they try to handle the load without going into constant current mode. And the output can be so noisy that it's impossible to determine. (That's why your touchscreen stops working when you plug it in - upgrade to a better charger)
It is sort of where the Apple method is superior in that it at least can tell you electrically (because some "2A" marked iPad chargers are actually wired for 1A charging - fraudulently marked chargers, what else is new?).
From what I understand, SnapChat will detect that you have done this and let the other person know you grabbed a screenshot of the image. While this won't stop you from having a copy of that particular image, it will warn the other person not to send you any new ones in the future.
Until iOS7 broke that. I don't know if Android SnapChat can detect it, but I know iOS prior to 7 it detected it as well (because for some reason you had to put your finger on the screen so the app detected THAT). Of course in iOS7 you can screenshot it without needing that workaround so it was the first thing that broke.
So I guess on Android it'll still work for a few years even if 4.4 makes screenshots invisible to the app.
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You don't. You just adjust it to make it advantageous to you.
If it was $200 when you set the prices, and your course was $600, you charge 3 BTC for it. Who cares that it's $730 now? You still charge 3 BTC for it, and if anyone is dumb enough to pay it, well, bonus.
As for volatility in US dollars, well there's some, but it's not generally so highly variable one cannot count on it. Like how practically all Canadian retailers will take US dollars at par - sure it's been fluctuating between 1.05-1.07 CAD, but par is easier rather than trying to compute a discount.
Back when the US dollar was worth more, they'd post acceptance rates (usually discount percentages - the cashier would discount your bill by the posted rate if you paid in US dollars). But those changed daily at the worst, and were always at a premium until the store decided the new rates held steady enough to warrant changing it again.
What, you expect businesses to not screw you? It just works like any other currency. You have a widget you charge 2 BTC for, and it's 2 BTC regardless if the exchange rate is US$730/BTC or US$50/BTC.
You don't even need GPS to do that. Just use the odometer. It's how the US insurance trackers work - they don't have a GPS unit - they plug into the OBDII port and get the actual mileage from the car.
Even without electronic monitoring one can always just use the odometer - especially since most are electronic nowadays but even the old mechanical ones were anti-tamper as well.
There's also RNP (Required Navigation Performance) approaches for aircraft that arrive to land - RNP approaches typically are shorter as they require a minimum navigation performance (triple GPS (all locked onto satellites and working properly), dual autopilots, a bunch of other equipment as well) which gives you approaches that instead of having to follow a long winding path of beacons in, let you cut to the chase and arrive at the airport in an orderly fashion. It can save easily 5-10 minutes of flying "the long way around" because RNP can take you closer and lower to terrain and provides more direct routing. A lot of approaches were designed to handle wider separations between aircraft as instruments are crude and imprecise.
Anyhow, the "good pilots" probably also maintain their own little Cessna or Piper single engine where basic flying skills get emphasized - typically for fun or recreational flying. (I recall a time when I was getting checked out in the "luxury" Cessna 172SP our flight school had - we used the autopilots, GPS and other things (because for the most part that's what the differences are), and the instructor said "Let's go home. Using whatever you want, get us back to the airport". Of course, it was a trick question - being at 1500' and only 10 minutes away, the answer was hand-fly it since there wasn't enough time to prepare the automation and do the required preparations).
Close. A MIPI CSI2 device actually. Used it before with a MIPI camera, though I was debugging using a HDMI-to-MIPI CSI2 bridge.
Scope used to see if the MIPI lines were toggling - and while I'd like a faster scope, 300MHz was sufficient for my needs (I only needed the general waveshape, I didn't care about bits). Low speed toggling is important as the CSI2 receiver PHY cannot operate with a continuous clock - it must transition to LP11 mode or things go horribly wrong.
Though, I also used it because the I2C bus sniffer I have only does 5V I2C, and I have 1.8V/3.3V I2C all over the place with no level shifter. It was however useful for the one 5V I2C bus I have.
It's fine for simple two level digital logic. You can get away with it if you're just diagnosing stuff you attach to an Arduino.
But modern digital electronics has a LOT of analog components. Heck, one interface I have has two modes - low speed and high speed. When in low-speed mode, it's a differential signal that goes between 0-1.8V. But when it transitions to high-speed mode, the signal levels go between 0-0.5V (the level being chosen so low-speed devices see nothing but logic 0). In proper operation, I have to see that the lines are going between low-speed and high-speed regularly to indicate that the device I'm working with is working just fine.
Hell, I only have a 300MHz scope on my desk. The clock signal in high speed mode is... 800MHz. But I didn't care - I just needed to see that the signal is transitioning to show it's probably working. Anything beyond that is now a software problem.
Heck, even ye olde humble 100bT Ethernet is basically an analog signal on the wire.
No doubt you can buy logical analyzers that can handle all these new signalling protocols, but the question is how much are you willing to pay because your logical analyzers are starting to go int the 5-6 figure price range.
True. However, the problem is the fact that the internet is now an all knowing, never forgetting medium has evolved far faster than society has. In the past, societal norms typically evolved with the (lack of) privacy.
After all, if you lived in a small town where everyone knew everyone else, well, you really cannot do anything bad or gossip spreads, fast and the only option is to leave. The Internet has pretty much made that impossible - it turned the world into a "small town" and society hasn't evolved past the "everyone poops" stage
The only way to handle it right now is to not post anything online ("privacy settings" is just a marketing term to mean "give more information than you normally would, sucker!" - when in reality, it's best to treat anything online as visible to anyone and everyone)..
Of course, social networks are booming because they know everyone's a bit vain, and a braggart. Who doesn't want to have a photo of their latest gadget - they want to show off to the world because it's human nature to. Just like going on vacation - we all harbor a secret "ha ha suckers!" attitude towards others and want to show off how much "better off" we are.
Which is a boon to social networks, not so much to society. Hell, in the past we didn't bother taking photos of ourselves having sex with others, showing off our drunken stupidity, etc - we knew enough to not bother about forgettable moments.
To be honest, we're really all voyeurs inside as well.
Apple is Cupertino's largest taxpayer by far.
In fact, Apple SPECIFICALLY CHOSE the site for their new building - Cupertino had no land available otherwise (it was land from an old Sun/HP campus, IIRC). So Apple had a choice - it could build its new building in Cupertino, or it could put it somewhere else. Cupertino gives Apple a small tax break (they don't give Apple any money - Apple pays more than that amount in taxes to Cupertino annually) as a thank you for being loyal to Cupertino. And it's likely the board sees that the added revenue from employees being there (from construction and all that to the sheer number of extra employees) to more than make up for the loss (after all, those people need to eat, like to frequent bars, etc. and Apple is likely needing to purchase local service to maintain the building and grounds and all that).
In fact, any large corporation wanting to put down roots can easily negotiate with the host city on benefits. I would expect Redmond to give Microsoft breaks in exchange for being in Redmond (though Microsoft's campus straddles the border, so there's a building that's actually odd because it has to be built to two different building codes as it straddles Redmond and a neighbouring city).
Likewise, Mountain View probably gives Google a few breaks as well.
And these cities are all known because of these big companies - anytime anyone mentions Redmond, well, up comes Microsoft. Cupertino has Apple, and Mountain View has Google.
Apple may not pull up its roots from Cupertino, but they can certainly decide to build in a neighboring city if they have to. The fact they're choosing Cupertino is really a preference for them - being nostalgic and all that. Hell, given all the difficulties Apple encountered, one may wonder if it was worth all that effort to build in Cupertino and not just build it nearby somewhere else.
Apple traditionally uses raw NAND flash for the phones - this gives them the advantage in that the controller is all theirs in the SoC and any performance issues likewise are in their control rather than use eMMC which you're dependent on the controller and flash array.
Just because the card can do 90MB/sec sequential doesn't mean it can do 90MB/sec random. In fact, a lot of faster SD cards are SLOWER for random reads and writes - they're optimized for high-speed sequential writes because the typical use case is to record high-def video (continuous writes), or handle a big dump of large photos. Very rarely would the device do a random read or write compared to the larger writes.
And then, there's stuff like what happened on the old Nexus 7 where it starts out great, but as you use it, performance degrades to the point where it's just lagging out.
Except to 99.99% of Android users, that permission information is completely useless to them. They don't know what it means, other than it's a screen that pops up whenever they install anything. They don't read it, they just tap Install and be done with it.
The technical term is Dancing Pigs (or dancing rabbits), and it describes basically that the user is most likely not pick the right choice security wise. They see an app in the Play store, tap install, then up comes the list of gobbledygook with a button that says "Install". They bypass the list and tap install, because they just wanted to install the app.
Relying on the user to make security decisions is poor security - all it affords you is the ability to blame the user for this mischoices, except said user is part of the very large majority who don't understand the screen, don't understand the need for it, and certainly don't understand why they need to spend the time reading it.
And that doesn't even get into the weird permissions you need in order to do stuff (like Read Phone State and Identity to get notifications when someone is calling).
The iPhone model isn't any better, but popping up extra dialogs doesn't work. Though, iOS at least does notify you and give you the ability to decline individual permissions (e.g., to stuff like location information, contacts and other stuff). But it too suffers from popup-it is.
Hell, the user can monkey around with some pretty complex steps if you tell them how to do it in small easy steps and they see benefit at the end. It's how they can do stuff like install OpenSSH, run PuTTY and enter in complex command lines - as long as they want to do it, they'll blindly follow. It's how the early jailbreak viruses spread - because people would do them to pirate apps and such and leave OpenSSH running with default passwords (because the HOWTO they used didn't tell them they needed to).
And I'm almost certain if you've helped someone tat they'll say something like "every time I print, nothing comes out of the printer" despite every time they print, a big screen shows saying "NO PAPER IN TRAY". No, they don't read dialogs either (happens with developers as well - the solution may be right there staring them in the face...).
To be fair, those were Fiskers which had acquired a reputation for catching fire if you look ta them wrong.
And no matter what they claim - it was a short in the 12 volt system that caused the fire. Something every car has, even the Tesla (it's used to run all the traditional 12V accessories in a car - ventilation, windows, lights, etc).
I tell everyone that "Smart" TVs are worth $0 more. Because for the most part, they're useless - they'll work initially, but 6 months down the road, they'll be abandoned, Plus the Uis aren't usually terribly good. so the best thing to do is buy a decent TV. If it has Smart, don't bother using it - don't bother plugging in the Ethernet cable or buying the WiFi adapter - especially since media boxes like PS3s, Xbox360s, Rokus, AppleTVs, etc., etc., etc., all provide the same functionality with a nicer UI, are supported for far longer, and have convenience features like WiFi built in. And given the cost of the WiFi adapter for TVs, you can generally get the alternative for the same price or less.
Hell, and LG can't even do Neilson properly - their data is just self-selected LG TV owners who cared enough to plug in the network cable (only something like 1% of smart TVs actually are even connected to the Internet).
Hell, There's Apple and Be, Inc.
Back in the mid 90's, MacOS (Classic) was on its last legs and Apple was shopping around. One of the things they considered was purchasing Be, Inc., for BeOS (which was created by former Apple exec Jean-Louis Gassee).
Apple offered Be about $300M or so for it. Gassee, seeing that Apple was "desperate" and really wanted BeOS, held out for more. Apple got frustrated, and approached NeXT instead, and Jobs ended up making some very convincing arguments against BeOS. And Apple then acquired NeXT for a whopping $425M - nearly 50% more than the offer for Be (though they really also bought a bunch of other things - including Jobs).
Be eventually was acquired 5 years later when Gassee convinced the rest of the board of Palm Inc. to buy it... for $11M. But they were on the decline after basically calling Apple's bluff and seeing them go with NeXT and NeXT STEP rather than BeOS.
Not quite inhouse, but not PrimeSense either. Microsoft acquired a company that specialized in low-cost time-of-flight cameras and that's what's in the Kinect 2 (PrimeSense is based on structured light fields).
Or, in other words, Kinect 2 again messes with the 3D imaging companies by offering a low-cost time-of-flight 3D imager, something that would've cost easily hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Of course, you can't use the Xbone one in a PC yet - but Microsoft promises it will be out for Windows in 2014. Given the unsubsidized Kinect was $250, even if Kinect 2 was $300, that's still a mighty cheap 3D imager.
(And given how popular the old Kinect was...).
Still is, actually. Google's been slowly closed-sourcing a lot of Android in an attempt to thwart manufacturers using AOSP from shipping phones that work almost like, but without, Google. (Remember Android was purchased by Google because Google was worried Apple would turn the screws down on Google and iOS.). With stuff like the Kindle showing that AOSP is worthwhile, Google's been withholding new development on AOSP to favor official Android releases.
Ars Technical details the differences between "official" and AOSP.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/
Interestingly, only Samsung has a complement of apps that can be a 1:1 replacement for Google's.
HDCP implementation is very easy for the hardware guys. Software wise it's even easier - you just usually toggle a few bits in a register (like clear HDCP keys, load HDCP keys, re-authenticate on event and interrupt mask). Just a few bits during initial initialization and you're done.
HDCP is almost always handled by the HDMI transmitter or receiver completely transparently - if you want it, you just buy the "HDCP" version of the chip. If not, you buy the "no HDCP" version of it. The only difference is whether or not there's a key pre-programmed in the silicon and a fuse that says whether or not to even attempt an HDCP negotiation.
Unless software specifically checks the part number (it's usually just a bit that says whether or not HDCP is supported), software needs to do zilch.
If you really wanted, you could simply replace the HDMI chip with a no-HDCP variant with little ill effect - the HDCP registers are there, they just don't do anything.
Actually it is. Samsung earlier this year had a leak of hydrofluoric (HF) acid that killed several of their workers and poisoned the environment. Of course, it's covered in a lot of places, but it barely made a ripple. As I recall, Samsung only had a small fine for that - something like $50k or so.
China Labor Watch has also found violations at lines making Samsung products. The same kind that plagued Apple a few years earlier.
Basically the factories make your product the way you want it. If it's Apple, they'll follow the necessary rules (and charge accordingly) imposed as well as the necessary quality.
The same lines can make high quality electronics, then make cheap counterfeit electronics the next. So one day the workers can make Apple products with all the worker protections Apple demands. Of course, Apple is forced to pay for it. They can make cheap Samsung phones the next day to the quality and worker protections Samsung wants.
Of course, consoles are using bottom of the barrel components, assembly procedures and worker protections.
(Of course, for a customer like Apple, Foxconn will set up dedicated factories and lines to make Apple products. Smaller customers will just have to share lines)
I think it's basically the idea that Google is better because they do this to "help the poor" and get the positive vibes from that, when in reality it's to make profit first, which are then used to help the poor.
It's like how GPL advocates always claim GPL is better than BSD because it prevents "closed sourcing" of the code. Yet said GPL advocates do the same thing, so they're claiming their license is better because it prevents "locking up the code" yet that is exactly what they do - lock up the code.
Well, it's usually for advertising because of Android's strange payment models make ads about the only way to make money. Sure they probably make some sense, but considering there's a variance in support for Google Wallet and especially in-app-purchases on a country level, an app developer who wants to make money and not bother with the different rules per country is best off giving it away for free and contracting Google to sell ads on it. (Unlike say, iOS where Apple apparently handles everything for you so you don't have to worry about sales taxes and surcharges and other stuff because Apple handled it).
Though, really, the Android prompt isn't that great - it's just doing a Dancing Pigs deal by popping it up, and most users will just tap "Install" anyways without even reviewing it. Or even noticing it.
Especially since a lot of people get app recommendations from friends and articles they read, so they want to try it out, and the extra dialog just means another tap to get past it. I'm surprised no one's made an extension that bypasses the screen - it would probably be extremely popular.
A lot (all?) of insurance premiums are invested by the company. That's how they can spend $1.02 for every $1 they collect. It also means your insurance premiums are a direct result of market conditions - if the stock market tanks, you can expect a hefty increase in your premium.
And yes, there are insurance companies that insure the uninsurable, because some drivers are so bad that no regular insurance company will insure them. Of course, you're also talking about hefty premiums - easily $3-4K a month, if not more. Yes, that's nearly $50K a year, Because it's mandatory to have insurance The lower end is already around $1K a month.
You would think such terrible drivers would get the hint and either find alternative means of transportation, or to sharpen up their driving skills... but apparently some people are that oblivious.
The issue is though that powerful CPUs are getting really cheap. Devices that don't need such power are finding themselves embedded GHz-class processors because that's the lowest end available that has sufficient power.
There's a gap between the 8-bit microcontrollers and the GHz-class processors these days, and it's widening - mostly because the cheapest SoCs are sporting high end cores and interfacing with really cheap RAM. Cheap enough that the mid-range ARM9s and ARM11 cores didn't save you a whole lot of money, and pretty much got squeezed out of the market.
Really. Check out the processors in the eReaders these days - they're easily hitting 800-1GHz in speed just to drive the e-ink display because that's the most cost-effective SoC. And they're swimming in 256MB+ in RAM, and really, the entire functionality takes just a tiny fraction of available resources.
Ditto with TVs - when the video processing SoC sports quad cores and all that, tossing in "smart tv" features is trivial because the power is there and there are few more moderate video processors.
For now.
One of the greatest things about the Xbox One and PS4 is they're keeping Microsoft and Sony honest. When Microsoft announced the draconian DRM scheme, Sony countered, causing Microsoft to completely rethink their DRM position. Of course, Sony did a few more thins to keep Microsoft on its toes.
And now, the day AFTER Sony gave out its big FAQ, Microsoft announced the Xbox One will support MP3s and DLNA. Which caused Sony to announce it was coming in a future update now. Heck, the whole "voice control" think was hastily implemented by Sony to counter the Xbone's Kinect, which is why it's a bit hokey on release.
PS4 fanboys can mock the Xbone, while Xbox fanboys can mock the PS4 all they want, and analystics can say "Sony wins", but in the end, it's better that we have the Xbone with the PS4 than either/or.
Sony can't revert to draconian DRM because they promised not to (and the Xbone can't, either).
Regardless of which console is "better" (remember, the PS3 outclasses the Xbox360) technically, the best thing is both do well enough that neither decides to leave, and that Nintendo remains as a spoiler.
Heck, if you want to remember what happened when Sony last thought it had the upper hand on everyone, see the news in the months leading up to the launch of the PS3. Now that Sony's a bit more humbled from that, hopefully things will be more interesting. Microsoft got a bit arrogant during the 360 era, so hopefully they'll be smacked down a bit and have to actually compete. But not too much - just enough to keep Microsoft from thinking it can get away with anything.
And hell, you have Apple to thank for screwing up the whole business model as well - Apple's approval process is really a very "lite" version of how one develops on consoles and it's forced Sony and Microsoft to rethink how they do development.
Technically, it's not a comparison template.
The signature on the card signifies you agree to the terms and conditions of your cardholder agreement. I.e., it's the acceptance of those terms between you and the issuer.
The signature on the slip signifies you agree to pay the amount shown on the slip. It's a contract between you and the issuer that you agree to pay the amount shown on the slip.
If one or the other isn't signed, the merchant bank could easily not pay, since the card was not valid at the time of transaction.
Of course, over time it got perverted to people thinking it was a comparison template.
Legally, if it doesn't have a signature, or if it has anything other than a valid signature, the merchant has a right to destroy the card as it's invalid.
And in theory, if your card wasn't signed, you could chargeback all the charges on it since it was invalid. But good luck finding a court who'll agree to it on technicality terms.
Or they could ship beefier chargers.
It's the one problem I have with USB charging protocol - there isn't any. There's no way for the device to detect anything other than "a charger is connected" - which leaves a lot up in the air. Is it a 500mA charger? 800mA (initial USB charging spec basically said you could assume 800mA)? 1A? 2A? More?
Now, your device COULD try to ramp up the charging current draw and see if it can find the "knee" where the charger output drops as it goes into constant-current mode. However, there are plenty of crappy barely adequate chargers out there that would probably smoke, overheat, catch fire, etc., as they try to handle the load without going into constant current mode. And the output can be so noisy that it's impossible to determine. (That's why your touchscreen stops working when you plug it in - upgrade to a better charger)
It is sort of where the Apple method is superior in that it at least can tell you electrically (because some "2A" marked iPad chargers are actually wired for 1A charging - fraudulently marked chargers, what else is new?).
Until iOS7 broke that. I don't know if Android SnapChat can detect it, but I know iOS prior to 7 it detected it as well (because for some reason you had to put your finger on the screen so the app detected THAT). Of course in iOS7 you can screenshot it without needing that workaround so it was the first thing that broke.
So I guess on Android it'll still work for a few years even if 4.4 makes screenshots invisible to the app.