I have a hard time believing that they will make all their revenue on hardware alone. They will have access to search and activity data combined with a feed that shows people's whereabouts and habits. This marketing data will be worth way more than any direct advertising.
No, Google is not using Glass to sell the OWNERS of Glass ads. That might happen eventually, but a more valuable service is being performed by Glass owners for Google. Namely the gather of information on other people THROUGH your glass. Sell an ad for Glass - you just get the owner, who's just a tiny part of the population. However, that person may encounter hundreds of people on the street daily - gathering information on them would generate far more returns.
After all, Google has already announced they'll identify people based on their faces and clothing, and probably use that information to tie into what they already have on you (matching you captured with your Google account, say).
A Glass user walks to a restaurant for lunch and casually ends up scanning all the patrons. Google now can sell ads to competing restaurants and deals for that restaurant to all those people.
Naturally, you cannot hinder the adoption of Glass by having developers spew ads at users - it will kill Glass
I was thinking along somewhat related lines, but I think the mechanisms might be more simple than "seedling roulette."
We see a pattern in orchids like dendrobiums, which are native to habitats where they undergo very dry winters. The prolonged drought of winter causes dormancy, which creates stress in the plants. The first taste of water after the drought triggers rapid growth and blooming flowers - in nature this immediately follows the arrival of the spring rains. We also know that if the spring water is inadequate, the plant will produce a few flowers and then die. It is often explained as "stress creates some kind of last-chance-to-propagate mechanism", but I believe it's simply another manifestation of the spring trigger conditions occurring in the dying plant.
It is also not uncommon for an orchid grown in a stressful artificial environment, such as one where it doesn't get the correct water or light, to produce a few meager flowers just before it dies. It certainly wouldn't surprise me that being exposed to a toxin like HS would create similar stresses in the plants, which could trigger the same mechanisms.
Random exposure to toxins would probably kill most of the plants. But I suspect controlled exposure could be exploited to produce flowers on a schedule, such as roses for Valentine's Day.
There is some research to indicate it's also a bit of evolution. During studies of plants undergoing the effects of climate change, they transplanted some from California all the way up to BC to see what would happen to it given the lower sunlight (but same temperatures).
The BC raised plants were smaller and they put all their growing energy into making seeds and spreading in the shorter summers. The California ones put the energy into growing into huge plants, but because of the shorter summer season, didn't produce as many seeds to spread as they were still expecting a much longer growing season with more sunlight.
(And that's the problem with climate change - the amount of sunlight received is much less the more North or South you go, so loss of farms nearer the equator will not be made up by new farms opening up).
Yes there's Forefront or whatever they call it nowadays, but who uses it anyway?
Companies do. MSE is for the home user, while the corporate/enterprise version of it is ForeFront.
It's all the same engine however, between the Malicious Software Removal Tool, MSE, what was OneCare, and ForeFront.
All I know is I had less issues - there was a point in time when our group had a bunch of people suddenly reporting issues with delayed write failures. one of the things attempted was switching out from Symantec to ForeFront (the company was slowly migrating anyways). It worked for some, didn't work for others.
A few months later, and a bunch of people started getting bluescreens daily. But others didn't - it turned out it was Symantec interacting with the disk encryption software. IT narrowed it down to Symantec, and a bunch of us who converted earlier chimed in that we never had issues going to ForeFront
OTOH it seems every one of those "passing" AV solutions at one time or other have marked a critical Windows file as a virus and made the system unbootable. Now, whether or not you can recover from that or reinstall from scratch is a good question.
MSE fails because it's less strict, probably because you don't want it to quarantine some valuable Windows file that makes it unbootable.
Sure Microsoft could crank up the heuristics and mark more malware, but you risk accidentally tagging a legit file - and the inconvenience of having to restore your system from a backup (if you have one) is extreme
Given UAC means you can't install drivers and such without prompting the user, most malware these days remain usermode to hide themselves. It means they can't install themselves into the kernel nor hide themselves from Task Manager, but for what malware authors need, it's Good Enough. And it means that once a new threat is positively identified, MSE can easily remove it rather than remove it by killing the system.
Plus, you do have to wonder about AV test companies - sponsored by the big guys like McAfee and Symantec. I'm sure there's absolutely no interest in making it appear that their products are better than the rest, especially free ones. Better to pay $50/year than free! And they have to have popups telling you all the work they do, rather than sit quietly in the corner apparently doing nothing.
I still think newsPAPERS provide a value proposition not matched by internet news sources, even from the same publisher. In a newspaper will be far more likely to see articles I haven't explicitly hunted for, thereby exposing me to more unexpected material. On the internet I'll generally get only a narrow range of articles that I have searched for. And paper is just easier to read; legible in any light, batteries not needed, light and foldable... lots of reasons.
That's the reason I still read newspapers in deadtree. Online is a clickfest and since pulling information is "hard" and incurs latency, I read a lot less articles - only the ones I'm interested in.
But read it in paper format, and my eyes may come across an interest photo or a subtitle or a paragraph and end up reading an article I never would've read otherwise. It's a great way to expand your horizons and become more aware of the world. Or learn something new and unrelated. It's something I've not found replicated reliably online - it's way too easy to specialize and lose focus of the bigger picture. Or just to see a different viewpoint on the world.
Last time I used someone elses computer to login to anything was 10 years ago. I would argue using a "friends" or otherwise untrusted guest computer is insecure and unwise.
And greatly degrades the usability of things like webmail (what's the point if you can only check it from one place?). Or consider it's also tied to Xbox Live, you MIGHT want to access your account for a cloud saved game, or play a game you bought that your friend doesn't.
There's probably other services as well - like MSDN/TechNet that are also tied to your Microsoft account.
Google, Microsoft and Apple do the same thing. If it's something bought from someone else, they re-brand it. Examples include Google Fiber, MS-DOS and Siri.
Siri wasn't re-branded. It was always called Siri, named after the original company, Siri Inc, which was spun off from SRI International (Stanford Research Institute) - a company created by Stanford to commercialize Stanford's research.
Of course, there were dozens of other things that were re-branded. Like Thunderbolt (though Apple licensed the trademark for free usage, after seeing what happened with FireWire)
No. PalmOS in its pre-Cobalt form was fundamentally dead on arrival the moment realtime tcp/ip with a responsive UI became a big deal, just like MacOS9. A PalmOS phone was basically a Palm Pilot strapped onto a headless phone through a serial port. The phone subsystem was pretty much completely independent from the palm subsystem, sharing little more than an internal serial link and battery.
That's the logical construction of every phone out there, including dumbphones. And even highly integrated modem-and-AP-SoCs.
I say logical because while it's no longer an RS-232 link, it's still virtualized as a serial channel - the physical signalling can be USB, a bit of shared memory and a set of mailboxes, etc, but it's all logically laid out as the AP (runs Android/iOS/Windows/whatever) sends commands to the modem (handles cellular telephony - from baseband through air interface) which does stuff.
Sometimes, the baseband is a software driver, but its still laid out like that in software.
Even in a dumbphone the processor handling the keypad, contacts, etc., is separate from the processor handling the telephony. On powerup most OSes query the modem to access the SIM contact list and use it to populate the contacts app. The modem itself can talk to the SIM for some stuff, but user data isn't one of them.
And yes, Android maintains this as well by having the telephony side abstracted away - the OS makes standardized API calls that get translated to the actual modem command - be it a Hayes AT command, a binary blob in shared memory, or a binary library exporting some APIs.
Now, you can argue that maybe the phone app isn't well integrated with the rest of the OS, in which case it's an OS integration issue. Several Windows Mobile phones were like that as well - I know of one I was looking at years ago that was PocketPC running the manufacturer's app to do phone stuff (it was a PDA with a tacked on modem), or what you would've seen with a WWAN card in your PC - you ran an app to manage the wireless stuff - and how well the app integrated into the host OS determined how well it acted with the OS.
Does Amazon allow you to review a book if you haven't bought it from them? If so, yes, it's ripe for abuse.
The quality of Apple App Store reviews were low in the early days, as anyone could review anything. So lots of apps got lots of one-star reviews for being 99c rather than free. Or other really stupid reasons.
The quality of reviews rose considerably when only people that had downloaded the app were allowed to review it.
Amazon does, for the simple reason that they realize not everyone buys their entire life from them, but they do want to serve as a nice review resource as well. It makes it ripe for abuse, but it also means that they can miss out on reviews from people who don't buy stuff from them. Games, for example - if most people bought from Steam, Amazon's reviews for them would be sparse for those who need to buy something as a gift for someone (yeah, you can probably do It through steam, but sometimes people like to have physical things).
As for iTunes, what happened was when you uninstalled an app, Apple asked if you wanted to rate it. Naturally, apps that got uninstalled typically were "bad" to the user so that naturally garnered a lot of 1-star reviews (if it was a fun app you enjoyed, you wouldn't uninstall it unless you absolutely had to, right?).
Because, AFAIK, iTunes has always required owning the app to review it (since you couldn't have gotten it elsewhere).
One solution would be to allow text/sms only. The phone keeps trying till it has delivered the message, it's small in size. You could even send all users a broadcast sms to let them know that.
You do realize that control channel overload is what causes the cell network to go down these days, right?
When the control channel is overloaded, a phone can't make a voice of data call (requires using the control channel to select the appropriate voice or data channel and timeslot).
Allowing text/sms only would work, but it also means that the rest of the cell tower is underutilized. Better would be to reprioritize things so re-establishing a data channel, voice channel, or handoffs have higher priorities than texts to get better utilization. Texts can always be delayed and the phone retries anyways, while being able to establish a voice and data connection can come in handy.
And yes, networks often have 911 prioritization as well - establishing an emergency call can use reserved bandwidth so even the fullest of cell towers can handle an emergency despite being slammed with traffic.
It's why the iPhone basically killed AT&T's network - the Infineon chipset it used was very power efficient and was aggressive - the instant no data was being sent, it tore down the data connection. Doing this often enough consumed control channel traffic until AT&T's network was overwhelmed with administrative data. It lead to one of the oddest conclusions available - AT&T had the fastest data network around. IF you could establish the connection. The voice and data channels were underutilized, while the control channels were overloaded so you couldn't make a voice or data connection, do handoffs (leading to dropped calls), and texts got delayed.
A poorly-written Android IM app on T-mo in the early days did the same as well.
Though, you'd think prior to a handoff, when the phone is scanning for a new tower, you could have the phone use the old tower's control channel to communicate with the new tower to get new voice/data channel allocations for handoff while the phone tries to re-establish the control channel connection. Add some in-band signalling just in case and you could offload some control channel traffic.
Windows is at it's strongest when they simply improve stability, performance, and so on - why do they think Windows 7 was such a success when Vista was such a flop? really all that changed was that Windows 7 was more stable, more compatible and performed better.
They didn't need a massive step change to the user interface, people are happy with it, know it, and can use it, they just want something that'll work for them. Few people will move away from Windows whilst it remains fast, stable, and continues to work, but if it changes completely and they have to learn a new UI then they're more likely to think, well, if I have to learn a whole new interface I could just as well learn Apple's interface, or one of the Linux interfaces so maybe now is a good time to switch...
Windows 7 won because Vista took the blame for a lot of stuff - if it went from XP to 7, 7 would've suffered the same issues Vista had. It's just that Vista forced everyone to clean their act up so 7 would have a way smoother ride. If you're on an un-upgraded Vista machine, it's fairly smooth going these days because of it.
Sometimes you need a product to take a hit so the next one with slight tweaks can be a success. Given what Vista ambitiously did (it turned everyone using Windows into a user by default, and you need UAC to "sudo" your way to do stuff), and how most apps at the time required admin because you couldn't use them otherwise...
Hell, I was migrating to a Win7 system from an old Win2000 PC that's dying, and half the stuff had to have their data files moved (the updated versions assumed the data files were in the user profile, and not with the app like it was).
It also doesn't help that the Windows 8 UI, nevermind the new Microsoft corporate branding, reminds me of the Windows 3.1 era. There's a definite simplicity to it that at one point was caused because most people were still using software graphics as most cards were just pure framebuffers. But it's also well, kinda ugly. It's lacking something that gives it a modern elegant look. Heck, if you thought the Windows XP "fisher price" theme was bad..
On the flip side, you have people complaining the opposite - that because Apple generally tends to keep the UIs static for the most part (other than stuff around the edges, OS X and iOS haven't changed all that much), the UI is 'old" and "dated" while the fancy stuff like Unity and Metro are "modern" and "fresh".
This could well be very true. I backed it on Kickstarter precisely because I wanted a low power ARM-based 1080p media device that was more flexible than offerings from Sony, MS, Nintendo. Had no real interest in it personally as a gaming console.
Technically, Raspberry Pi fits that bill as well.
Don't let its 700MHz ARM11 fool you - it's got a powerful GPU attached to it which allows it to play 1080p videos and xbmc. The only reason it has an ARM (it's really a GPU with an attached ARM) is to feed the GPU with data so OEMs don't need to invest in a new SoC - the ARM just handles the UI, network, USB, etc., getting the video data and feeding it straight into the GPU.
This. Sadly, I personally don't think that Ouya content is going to be able to carry it though.
As long as it can run some flavor of MAME, that's all you need. Stick in a USB hard drive full of ROMs and really, you're pretty much set content-wise. Full controller action and big screen arcades, what more do you need?
Well, on-call people like doctors and surgeons used pagers. Which has the advantage that due to their low frequencies and high power, often has a larger coverage than cellphones.
Everyone else kept in touch with other people. If the parents were going for a dinner and a movie, the babysitter was notified what restaurant and what theatre. Any emergency and the babysitter calls the theatre or restaurant who will send over an usher or a waiter to bring the parents to a phone.
911 - well, there are TONS of phones that can be used. Like payphones. Or the box office. Or the maitre'd. Or neighbouring businesses.
I suppose it's only a recent thing where everything that's not for sale is suddenly off limits to customers to use in an emergency...
Many commercial buildings have a lot of steal in the structure / roof which is very difficult for higher frequency radio waves to penetrate. (Concrete and block are also difficult for many signals to penetrate) I highly doubt most stores are actively blocking your signal, however many are very likely "passively blocking" phone signals due to the commonly used construction materials in commercial buildings.
Commercial buildings have a LOT of RF shielding. First, the studs are normally steel studs. The roofs are steel, the wall is usually concrete with steel rebar. And the windows are normally silvered to reflect light and the heat out so the interior stays cool and the A/C is used less.
Heck, in an office building I worked at, the 2nd floor you couldn't get a cell signal at all. But when they expanded on the third floor, full bars. Perhaps it was also why the third floor A/C was always inadequate.
I think a long list of permissions can be off-putting to users, and many permissions are needed only when the user actually tries to e.g. send an SMS from the app or take a picture. It would be better at that point to ask the user if they trust the app, much like the Android VpnService has to when it starts.
I don't really think it's the case. I think most users don't give a damn, actually. Given how the "Install" button used to be presented AFTER the permission list, and now it's presented BEFORE the permission list (it's the topmost button on ICS) and the permission list is abbreviated (you get some bit ones, and a bunch more are hidden under "More permissions"), I think most users probably care not at all.
That permission dialog is, unfortunately, a form of Dancing Pigs style of security. The user's going to be presented with this huge list, and most will go "whatevs, just get me my game already".
I think even iOS 6 implements it wrongly - it asks users if the app should be granted permissions to photos/contacts/etc, which is an annoying popup. Though I think it does at least present the app with a null list, it's just the annoyance to the user. I'm sure a crafty developer can get the user to click "Allow" by simply bombarding them with dialogs where they have to click Allow. Like "Should I give you 100 smurfberries? They're FREE! No Catch! [Allow] [Don't Allow]". They'll add in the regular iOS based ones when the user is mindlessly tapping allow.
Yes. People who think vinyl is better than CD are idiots. The best vinyl recordings have been measured to be good for around 60dB of dynamic range. By comparison, CD is guaranteed to have a full 96dB of dynamic range, by simple fact of it being 16-bit LPCM. Vinyl cannot handle low frequencies without distorting, and becomes increasingly distorted above 5kHz. CDs made from a proper band-limited input are distortion free for the entire Nyquist range, from 0 to 22kHz. On top of that all, CDs are erasure coded, so they have to get fairly heavily scratched up before they have any sort of pops or skipping. From a technical standpoint, CDs are unquestionably better than any vinyl format.
Two problems though.
1) CDs rarely use the entire dynamic range. In fact, they're LESS likely to use the dynamic range due to the loudness wars that ensures everything is dynamic range compressed. Now, Vinyl can suffer the same problem if it's mastered just after the DRC process.
2) Dynamic range is a problem and a solution. A CD that's overly DRC clips. Clipping introduces harsh harmonics that grate on the ear and make things unlistenable. Vinyl, like tubes, distort, but their distortion adds pleasant harmonics that can enhance the audio (it's why the good guitar pedals and amps use tubes because you want distortion).
Digital is technically better. It's just been abused to the point where it can sound worse, hence the Vinyl resurgence of the past 5+ years or so. The abuse happened because digital is really a format that didn't have the limitations of analog - making things sound louder in digital can be done without hitting analog limitations. Vinyl can only be "so loud" before the track width exceeds what you want (wider tracks == less music) or cause the needle to skip or the grooves to intercut.
It was a mistake to allow apps to declare which access rights they want and then present users with a take-it-or-leave-it choice. While this part in itself is not a bad thing, it should be possible for users to fine-tune the settings once an app is installed and the apps then cope with that. I know there are apps out there that let you do this or similar but it should have been built in from the start. This is the activeX of the 2010s
Wait until Google isn't ad-supported for this feature. A lot of them are used to support ads (contacts, IMEI, etc). And Google sells a lot of mobile ads (they own the largest mobile ad networks out there, courtesy Apple).
If Google made it known that people were feeding its ad networks bad data, then selling ads won't fund Google anymore. And Android was bought by Google so Apple wouldn't cut Google out of mobile advertising (never be dependent on a third party, remember? Apple was raking it up in the mobile biz and Google saw winds of change. They could depend on Apple, or they could forge their own way to avoid Apple cutting them off).
As long as permission faking is a geek-only thing, it's a lot easier to filter out the bad data (most people in the/. crowd would avoid the Facebook app, or most apps in general. The common user with the free Android, though, probably will not. And heck, Facebook will probably be handily pre-installed).
well.. that price is without vat, so the time I could buy it the price is 48 euros. they don't pay license fees for codecs(that's extra) and so on. and the production is probably fully automated. you might have worse luck sourcing the parts at their pricing though but I'm pretty sure the chip companies aren't doing this as a charity..
once there's no manual labor involved then assembling them is pretty much the same regardless of where it happens if scale is big enough(that automation can be done).
That's the deal - the Pi is sold pretty much manufactured by automated processes. Whether in the US, UK, China or anywhere else, all the effort is in setting up the machines and they spit out a fully assembled Pi.
And that happens because the Pi is sold as a bare circuit board - no case or other frills - everything is mounted on the circuit board and wrapped up in an anti-static bag.
When all you're going is taking the output of the pick and place machine, it's cheap. The hard part is in the casings - Steve Jobs and Woz realized this over 30 years ago when they moved from the bare board Apple I to the plastic-cased Apple II that "normal" people would buy.
Of course, once you start putting cases on, it adds production steps and that's where the price differentials come into play. Setting up a human assembly line is cheap and agile - change a design and they can be retrained in a few hours and building your product in a new revised case. An automated assembly line is more expensive to set up and not so agile (they need to be programmed and overseen as slight variations can trigger failures in the vision system), but they're cheaper once everything is up and running as machines are cheaper than humans.
There's not too much assembly work or even human hands touching the Pi required. Even testing can be automated using the right production test software.
Facebook is tracking you. Facebook is tracking you even if you don't have a Facebook account.
There are a fair number of sites that simply won't load if you are blocking FB.
Voluntary my fuzzy butt.
Same with Google. Google Analytics is used by far more sites - and I see it far more often then fbcdn.com And if it wasn't for NoScript which has a Google Analytics workaround, you have to add it otherwise sites really don't work.
I've not seen any issues blocking fbcdn.com. Other than those who embed photos or videos from facebook. Though more people are likely to embed youtube videos.
I don't think he's having rich people problems, it's just he's concerned that a (currently new) technology, once matured, could be used - even in a well meaning way - to track and compromise the privacy of ordinary people just going about their ordinary business, by third parties who feel they need the information to do their jobs. For example, a drone might be operated by a company that sells advertising, tracking things like what stores you go to and who your friends are, so that it can deliver advertising more appropriate to your interests.
I'm pretty sure that's what Schmidt is concerned about, anyway.
Exactly. If ordinary people are using Google-branded glasses to spy on other people, its OK (note - Schmidt has been seen commuting wearing Google Glass continually). It's just not OK to do the same via a camera that's not controlled by them.
And yes, people will use Google Glass the same way he finds offensive.
"Not being a great reader my son just clicks OK..."
Isn't that the root of all the problems? Not only payments but also viruses, trojans and other crap.
Well, it's known as the Dancing Pigs problem. Basically, anything that gets in a user's way is summarily dealt with. The more desirable the outcome, the more the user will ignore things that get in their way.
People want to do stuff. The tools they use should accomplish doing that stuff. Like a car is used to get from point A to point B. Now, some users like to do stuff on their car (we usually call them shadetree mechanics), so they want a car to do more than get them from point A to point B.
Likewise, computer users are the same (the computer and the car are probably two pieces of technology everyone has to interact with even if they don't want to - they're forced to). The VAST majority of computer users just want to get stuff done - get some information, buy some stuff, do some banking, play a game - they don't want to or care about viruses, trojans, malware, etc. Likewise, for a car, they don't care about electronic fuel injection, OBD-II ports, chipping, etc. They do care about doing so in style (paint, color, shape) and convenience (radio, A/C, etc). LIkewise, the typical computer user cares about style (form is very important, as Apple has demonstrated), and convenience (Wi-Fi, portability).
In the end, it's why Apple chose to go the curated route for iOS - because users are just horrible at answering security questions. Hell, they're horrible at answering privacy questions as well - given the popularity of Facebook despite its privacy violations. Android's install permission list are just the same - you can bet 99.99% of Android users don't read them (The 0.01% are the/., crowd who cares - given the millions sold per month, it's a large group, but not that large.
The aviation industry is slow to make changes to anything. Their radios still use amplitude modulation and people expect them all of a sudden to switch to encrypted digital protocols?
AM isn't outdated. It's the perfect modulation for aviation. It's got great behavior when two transmitters use the same frequency - namely, any receivers in the vicinity squeal. Second, more powerful transmitter can transmit "on top" of the squeal and still carry useful information.
The first point is important as most aviation communication frequencies are simplex - it's VERY easy to accidentally transmit over someone else. By squealing, the receiver is told that the transmission is being interfered with. With other modulations, it's not often obvious this happened - with FM, the strongest signal wins and is demodulated (weaker ones simply disappear). Digital modes depend on how they're modulated - but it can easily end up as a string of pure bit errors (remember, the receiver sees both signals simultaneously) with no indications as to the cause.
The second point is important because an aircraft radio is around 20-25W, while ATC can easily be 200+W. This is important as ATC may be giving one plane instructions while someone else is trying to contact ATC and they step on each other. The plane receiving instructions from ATC gets a squeal, but because of the difference in transmit power, it's possible for the pilot to actually hear ATC on top of the squeal. If the pilot couldn't make out the instructions, the squeal alerts them that it's because of interference. Had it been FM, a plane could've stepped over and sheer coincidence would mean it forms a plausible, but incorrect, instruction.
Finally, you have to remember that any technology you implement has to scale from airliners to little general aviation planes - the latter often owned by people who don't have a lot of extra money. Canada recently got into a bit of trouble because they mandated 406MHz ELTs as mandatory equipment. Average cost with installation is a little north of $5K for a basic model, $7K+ if you want a fancier one like one with built-in GPS (versus one that relies on aircraft GPS).
It may surprise you, but most pilots aren't super-rich - they're typically middle class people where flying is a hobby. And unless you're a decades-long career pilot, pay is horrendous (easily just $16K annually if you're just starting out to $32K as captain in a small regional airline). Heck, if you fly, you'll hear some *terrible* radios.
So AM works just fine - probably still one of the best modulations around for the purpose, and given its operating conditions, has the best side effects at handling multiple transmissions, all at the cost of audio fidelity. But given that communications are generally well structured, it's possible to comprehend even the worst transmission.
For general aviation, the biggest thing about ADS-B is that it most likely won't be a panel mounted instrument, but using one of the cheapest pieces of equipment ever - an iPad. There are now a few ADS-B receivers that interface to WiFi or Bluetooth that communicate with apps running on iPad and smartphones that serve as data inputs, and others that include an air data and attitude measuring system to give you unofficial instrumentation as well.
Not even close. Apple ditched ADB to standardize on USB for keyboards and mice, and that's about it. ADB was a crappy apple-only thing that nobody missed.
It did maybe potentially slightly encourage PC makers to eventually drop PS/2 ports for keyboards and mice but that's about it.
USB was widely available on PCs before apple standardized on it with the first imacs. USB PC peripherals were widely available for it -- cameras, pre-ipod mp3 players, scanners, printers, etc.
PCs were just late to the USB party with keyboards and mice because Windows 95 didn't support USB out of the box until "Win95 service release 2" and you often had to install chipset drivers. So while you could use a USB keyboard and mouse with Windows 95 "eventually", you couldn't reliably setup windows 95 with a usb keyboard and mouse. Not to mention that if you went into BIOS the usb keyboard likely didn't work.
So it took a lot longer to dump the PS/2 slots and switch over to USB entirely.
But -other- then keyboards and mice, USB was widely available on PCs well before Apple committed to it.
Actually, ADB, despite being the APPLE desktop bus, was used in quite a number of places. Like in many UNIX workstations (Suns, HPs, and such). There were also some strange things that hooked to it as well.
As for USB - yes it was widely available on PCs. But almost no one used them - USB peripherals were horrendously expensive. I remember seeing a generic PS/2 keyboard for $20. Its USB equivalent, still equally crappy, was $50. Likewise, most other USB peripherals were similarly overpriced compared to the legacy version.
Heck, if you wanted to hate on Apple, you'd hate on them for going completely USB - because USB cost more, plain and simple, and there was very little USB stuff out there - keyboards, mice (try finding a replacement then for the freaking puck...) and USB floppy drives.
Heck, a lot of pre-iPod players used parallel ports and serial ports to transfer data alongside USB. Of course, at USB 1.1 speeds, it took a little while.
Oh, and Win95 OSR2 came out in 1996 with USB support in 1997. Win98 had USB HID support built in (but mass storage required drivers). The original iMac came out in 1998. Probably around the same time as Win98. It's considered that the iMac sparked the whole USB revolution where everyone post-iMac started making all sorts of USB things, rather than let it languish as an underused port suitable only for joysticks and keyboards/mice.
Windows did not get full USB as we know it today until Windows 2000/Windows ME, It was actually Microsoft holding back USB support (I think even Microsoft was putting effort into support IEEE1394/FireWire).
It's not like there's not other mail providers, search providers, and little applets floating around the web that have nothing to do with google. If google's behavior is becoming unacceptable STOP USING IT.
That's the direct use case. How do you avoid using Google without breaking the web? Google Analytics is everywhere, and webmasters often force you to redirect through Analytics.
Then there's all the +1 buttons. The Google CDN. The Google owned ad networks. Google owned javascript libraries used by many. YouTube embeds. And probably dozens of other smaller things webmasters use that are owned by Google in some form of another.
Nevermind on the mobile side, where you can have Google serving up ads (both Android and iOS, and probably others as well). Or deliberately tracking you (on iOS where Google worked around Safari's privacy settings).
Or if your buddy only uses GMail? Or Google Apps for Domains?
And don't forget about Google Groups, scanning and archiving Usenet. Or Google Checkout.
Avoiding Google is about as practical as not owning a car in North America. Sure you can do it in some cities, but in most of the others, it's not practical at all.
Hell, you can avoid Facebook far more easily than Google.
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No, Google is not using Glass to sell the OWNERS of Glass ads. That might happen eventually, but a more valuable service is being performed by Glass owners for Google. Namely the gather of information on other people THROUGH your glass. Sell an ad for Glass - you just get the owner, who's just a tiny part of the population. However, that person may encounter hundreds of people on the street daily - gathering information on them would generate far more returns.
After all, Google has already announced they'll identify people based on their faces and clothing, and probably use that information to tie into what they already have on you (matching you captured with your Google account, say).
A Glass user walks to a restaurant for lunch and casually ends up scanning all the patrons. Google now can sell ads to competing restaurants and deals for that restaurant to all those people.
Naturally, you cannot hinder the adoption of Glass by having developers spew ads at users - it will kill Glass
There is some research to indicate it's also a bit of evolution. During studies of plants undergoing the effects of climate change, they transplanted some from California all the way up to BC to see what would happen to it given the lower sunlight (but same temperatures).
The BC raised plants were smaller and they put all their growing energy into making seeds and spreading in the shorter summers. The California ones put the energy into growing into huge plants, but because of the shorter summer season, didn't produce as many seeds to spread as they were still expecting a much longer growing season with more sunlight.
(And that's the problem with climate change - the amount of sunlight received is much less the more North or South you go, so loss of farms nearer the equator will not be made up by new farms opening up).
Companies do. MSE is for the home user, while the corporate/enterprise version of it is ForeFront.
It's all the same engine however, between the Malicious Software Removal Tool, MSE, what was OneCare, and ForeFront.
All I know is I had less issues - there was a point in time when our group had a bunch of people suddenly reporting issues with delayed write failures. one of the things attempted was switching out from Symantec to ForeFront (the company was slowly migrating anyways). It worked for some, didn't work for others.
A few months later, and a bunch of people started getting bluescreens daily. But others didn't - it turned out it was Symantec interacting with the disk encryption software. IT narrowed it down to Symantec, and a bunch of us who converted earlier chimed in that we never had issues going to ForeFront
OTOH it seems every one of those "passing" AV solutions at one time or other have marked a critical Windows file as a virus and made the system unbootable. Now, whether or not you can recover from that or reinstall from scratch is a good question.
MSE fails because it's less strict, probably because you don't want it to quarantine some valuable Windows file that makes it unbootable.
Sure Microsoft could crank up the heuristics and mark more malware, but you risk accidentally tagging a legit file - and the inconvenience of having to restore your system from a backup (if you have one) is extreme
Given UAC means you can't install drivers and such without prompting the user, most malware these days remain usermode to hide themselves. It means they can't install themselves into the kernel nor hide themselves from Task Manager, but for what malware authors need, it's Good Enough. And it means that once a new threat is positively identified, MSE can easily remove it rather than remove it by killing the system.
Plus, you do have to wonder about AV test companies - sponsored by the big guys like McAfee and Symantec. I'm sure there's absolutely no interest in making it appear that their products are better than the rest, especially free ones. Better to pay $50/year than free! And they have to have popups telling you all the work they do, rather than sit quietly in the corner apparently doing nothing.
ObXKCD. How appropriate, as well.
That's the reason I still read newspapers in deadtree. Online is a clickfest and since pulling information is "hard" and incurs latency, I read a lot less articles - only the ones I'm interested in.
But read it in paper format, and my eyes may come across an interest photo or a subtitle or a paragraph and end up reading an article I never would've read otherwise. It's a great way to expand your horizons and become more aware of the world. Or learn something new and unrelated. It's something I've not found replicated reliably online - it's way too easy to specialize and lose focus of the bigger picture. Or just to see a different viewpoint on the world.
And greatly degrades the usability of things like webmail (what's the point if you can only check it from one place?). Or consider it's also tied to Xbox Live, you MIGHT want to access your account for a cloud saved game, or play a game you bought that your friend doesn't.
There's probably other services as well - like MSDN/TechNet that are also tied to your Microsoft account.
Siri wasn't re-branded. It was always called Siri, named after the original company, Siri Inc, which was spun off from SRI International (Stanford Research Institute) - a company created by Stanford to commercialize Stanford's research.
Of course, there were dozens of other things that were re-branded. Like Thunderbolt (though Apple licensed the trademark for free usage, after seeing what happened with FireWire)
That's the logical construction of every phone out there, including dumbphones. And even highly integrated modem-and-AP-SoCs.
I say logical because while it's no longer an RS-232 link, it's still virtualized as a serial channel - the physical signalling can be USB, a bit of shared memory and a set of mailboxes, etc, but it's all logically laid out as the AP (runs Android/iOS/Windows/whatever) sends commands to the modem (handles cellular telephony - from baseband through air interface) which does stuff.
Sometimes, the baseband is a software driver, but its still laid out like that in software.
Even in a dumbphone the processor handling the keypad, contacts, etc., is separate from the processor handling the telephony. On powerup most OSes query the modem to access the SIM contact list and use it to populate the contacts app. The modem itself can talk to the SIM for some stuff, but user data isn't one of them.
And yes, Android maintains this as well by having the telephony side abstracted away - the OS makes standardized API calls that get translated to the actual modem command - be it a Hayes AT command, a binary blob in shared memory, or a binary library exporting some APIs.
Now, you can argue that maybe the phone app isn't well integrated with the rest of the OS, in which case it's an OS integration issue. Several Windows Mobile phones were like that as well - I know of one I was looking at years ago that was PocketPC running the manufacturer's app to do phone stuff (it was a PDA with a tacked on modem), or what you would've seen with a WWAN card in your PC - you ran an app to manage the wireless stuff - and how well the app integrated into the host OS determined how well it acted with the OS.
Amazon does, for the simple reason that they realize not everyone buys their entire life from them, but they do want to serve as a nice review resource as well. It makes it ripe for abuse, but it also means that they can miss out on reviews from people who don't buy stuff from them. Games, for example - if most people bought from Steam, Amazon's reviews for them would be sparse for those who need to buy something as a gift for someone (yeah, you can probably do It through steam, but sometimes people like to have physical things).
As for iTunes, what happened was when you uninstalled an app, Apple asked if you wanted to rate it. Naturally, apps that got uninstalled typically were "bad" to the user so that naturally garnered a lot of 1-star reviews (if it was a fun app you enjoyed, you wouldn't uninstall it unless you absolutely had to, right?).
Because, AFAIK, iTunes has always required owning the app to review it (since you couldn't have gotten it elsewhere).
You do realize that control channel overload is what causes the cell network to go down these days, right?
When the control channel is overloaded, a phone can't make a voice of data call (requires using the control channel to select the appropriate voice or data channel and timeslot).
Allowing text/sms only would work, but it also means that the rest of the cell tower is underutilized. Better would be to reprioritize things so re-establishing a data channel, voice channel, or handoffs have higher priorities than texts to get better utilization. Texts can always be delayed and the phone retries anyways, while being able to establish a voice and data connection can come in handy.
And yes, networks often have 911 prioritization as well - establishing an emergency call can use reserved bandwidth so even the fullest of cell towers can handle an emergency despite being slammed with traffic.
It's why the iPhone basically killed AT&T's network - the Infineon chipset it used was very power efficient and was aggressive - the instant no data was being sent, it tore down the data connection. Doing this often enough consumed control channel traffic until AT&T's network was overwhelmed with administrative data. It lead to one of the oddest conclusions available - AT&T had the fastest data network around. IF you could establish the connection. The voice and data channels were underutilized, while the control channels were overloaded so you couldn't make a voice or data connection, do handoffs (leading to dropped calls), and texts got delayed.
A poorly-written Android IM app on T-mo in the early days did the same as well.
Though, you'd think prior to a handoff, when the phone is scanning for a new tower, you could have the phone use the old tower's control channel to communicate with the new tower to get new voice/data channel allocations for handoff while the phone tries to re-establish the control channel connection. Add some in-band signalling just in case and you could offload some control channel traffic.
Windows 7 won because Vista took the blame for a lot of stuff - if it went from XP to 7, 7 would've suffered the same issues Vista had. It's just that Vista forced everyone to clean their act up so 7 would have a way smoother ride. If you're on an un-upgraded Vista machine, it's fairly smooth going these days because of it.
Sometimes you need a product to take a hit so the next one with slight tweaks can be a success. Given what Vista ambitiously did (it turned everyone using Windows into a user by default, and you need UAC to "sudo" your way to do stuff), and how most apps at the time required admin because you couldn't use them otherwise...
Hell, I was migrating to a Win7 system from an old Win2000 PC that's dying, and half the stuff had to have their data files moved (the updated versions assumed the data files were in the user profile, and not with the app like it was).
It also doesn't help that the Windows 8 UI, nevermind the new Microsoft corporate branding, reminds me of the Windows 3.1 era. There's a definite simplicity to it that at one point was caused because most people were still using software graphics as most cards were just pure framebuffers. But it's also well, kinda ugly. It's lacking something that gives it a modern elegant look. Heck, if you thought the Windows XP "fisher price" theme was bad..
On the flip side, you have people complaining the opposite - that because Apple generally tends to keep the UIs static for the most part (other than stuff around the edges, OS X and iOS haven't changed all that much), the UI is 'old" and "dated" while the fancy stuff like Unity and Metro are "modern" and "fresh".
Technically, Raspberry Pi fits that bill as well.
Don't let its 700MHz ARM11 fool you - it's got a powerful GPU attached to it which allows it to play 1080p videos and xbmc. The only reason it has an ARM (it's really a GPU with an attached ARM) is to feed the GPU with data so OEMs don't need to invest in a new SoC - the ARM just handles the UI, network, USB, etc., getting the video data and feeding it straight into the GPU.
As long as it can run some flavor of MAME, that's all you need. Stick in a USB hard drive full of ROMs and really, you're pretty much set content-wise. Full controller action and big screen arcades, what more do you need?
Well, on-call people like doctors and surgeons used pagers. Which has the advantage that due to their low frequencies and high power, often has a larger coverage than cellphones.
Everyone else kept in touch with other people. If the parents were going for a dinner and a movie, the babysitter was notified what restaurant and what theatre. Any emergency and the babysitter calls the theatre or restaurant who will send over an usher or a waiter to bring the parents to a phone.
911 - well, there are TONS of phones that can be used. Like payphones. Or the box office. Or the maitre'd. Or neighbouring businesses.
I suppose it's only a recent thing where everything that's not for sale is suddenly off limits to customers to use in an emergency...
Commercial buildings have a LOT of RF shielding. First, the studs are normally steel studs. The roofs are steel, the wall is usually concrete with steel rebar. And the windows are normally silvered to reflect light and the heat out so the interior stays cool and the A/C is used less.
Heck, in an office building I worked at, the 2nd floor you couldn't get a cell signal at all. But when they expanded on the third floor, full bars. Perhaps it was also why the third floor A/C was always inadequate.
I don't really think it's the case. I think most users don't give a damn, actually. Given how the "Install" button used to be presented AFTER the permission list, and now it's presented BEFORE the permission list (it's the topmost button on ICS) and the permission list is abbreviated (you get some bit ones, and a bunch more are hidden under "More permissions"), I think most users probably care not at all.
That permission dialog is, unfortunately, a form of Dancing Pigs style of security. The user's going to be presented with this huge list, and most will go "whatevs, just get me my game already".
I think even iOS 6 implements it wrongly - it asks users if the app should be granted permissions to photos/contacts/etc, which is an annoying popup. Though I think it does at least present the app with a null list, it's just the annoyance to the user. I'm sure a crafty developer can get the user to click "Allow" by simply bombarding them with dialogs where they have to click Allow. Like "Should I give you 100 smurfberries? They're FREE! No Catch! [Allow] [Don't Allow]". They'll add in the regular iOS based ones when the user is mindlessly tapping allow.
Two problems though.
1) CDs rarely use the entire dynamic range. In fact, they're LESS likely to use the dynamic range due to the loudness wars that ensures everything is dynamic range compressed. Now, Vinyl can suffer the same problem if it's mastered just after the DRC process.
2) Dynamic range is a problem and a solution. A CD that's overly DRC clips. Clipping introduces harsh harmonics that grate on the ear and make things unlistenable. Vinyl, like tubes, distort, but their distortion adds pleasant harmonics that can enhance the audio (it's why the good guitar pedals and amps use tubes because you want distortion).
Digital is technically better. It's just been abused to the point where it can sound worse, hence the Vinyl resurgence of the past 5+ years or so. The abuse happened because digital is really a format that didn't have the limitations of analog - making things sound louder in digital can be done without hitting analog limitations. Vinyl can only be "so loud" before the track width exceeds what you want (wider tracks == less music) or cause the needle to skip or the grooves to intercut.
Wait until Google isn't ad-supported for this feature. A lot of them are used to support ads (contacts, IMEI, etc). And Google sells a lot of mobile ads (they own the largest mobile ad networks out there, courtesy Apple).
If Google made it known that people were feeding its ad networks bad data, then selling ads won't fund Google anymore. And Android was bought by Google so Apple wouldn't cut Google out of mobile advertising (never be dependent on a third party, remember? Apple was raking it up in the mobile biz and Google saw winds of change. They could depend on Apple, or they could forge their own way to avoid Apple cutting them off).
As long as permission faking is a geek-only thing, it's a lot easier to filter out the bad data (most people in the /. crowd would avoid the Facebook app, or most apps in general. The common user with the free Android, though, probably will not. And heck, Facebook will probably be handily pre-installed).
That's the deal - the Pi is sold pretty much manufactured by automated processes. Whether in the US, UK, China or anywhere else, all the effort is in setting up the machines and they spit out a fully assembled Pi.
And that happens because the Pi is sold as a bare circuit board - no case or other frills - everything is mounted on the circuit board and wrapped up in an anti-static bag.
When all you're going is taking the output of the pick and place machine, it's cheap. The hard part is in the casings - Steve Jobs and Woz realized this over 30 years ago when they moved from the bare board Apple I to the plastic-cased Apple II that "normal" people would buy.
Of course, once you start putting cases on, it adds production steps and that's where the price differentials come into play. Setting up a human assembly line is cheap and agile - change a design and they can be retrained in a few hours and building your product in a new revised case. An automated assembly line is more expensive to set up and not so agile (they need to be programmed and overseen as slight variations can trigger failures in the vision system), but they're cheaper once everything is up and running as machines are cheaper than humans.
There's not too much assembly work or even human hands touching the Pi required. Even testing can be automated using the right production test software.
Same with Google. Google Analytics is used by far more sites - and I see it far more often then fbcdn.com And if it wasn't for NoScript which has a Google Analytics workaround, you have to add it otherwise sites really don't work.
I've not seen any issues blocking fbcdn.com. Other than those who embed photos or videos from facebook. Though more people are likely to embed youtube videos.
Exactly. If ordinary people are using Google-branded glasses to spy on other people, its OK (note - Schmidt has been seen commuting wearing Google Glass continually). It's just not OK to do the same via a camera that's not controlled by them.
And yes, people will use Google Glass the same way he finds offensive.
Well, it's known as the Dancing Pigs problem. Basically, anything that gets in a user's way is summarily dealt with. The more desirable the outcome, the more the user will ignore things that get in their way.
People want to do stuff. The tools they use should accomplish doing that stuff. Like a car is used to get from point A to point B. Now, some users like to do stuff on their car (we usually call them shadetree mechanics), so they want a car to do more than get them from point A to point B.
Likewise, computer users are the same (the computer and the car are probably two pieces of technology everyone has to interact with even if they don't want to - they're forced to). The VAST majority of computer users just want to get stuff done - get some information, buy some stuff, do some banking, play a game - they don't want to or care about viruses, trojans, malware, etc. Likewise, for a car, they don't care about electronic fuel injection, OBD-II ports, chipping, etc. They do care about doing so in style (paint, color, shape) and convenience (radio, A/C, etc). LIkewise, the typical computer user cares about style (form is very important, as Apple has demonstrated), and convenience (Wi-Fi, portability).
In the end, it's why Apple chose to go the curated route for iOS - because users are just horrible at answering security questions. Hell, they're horrible at answering privacy questions as well - given the popularity of Facebook despite its privacy violations. Android's install permission list are just the same - you can bet 99.99% of Android users don't read them (The 0.01% are the /., crowd who cares - given the millions sold per month, it's a large group, but not that large.
AM isn't outdated. It's the perfect modulation for aviation. It's got great behavior when two transmitters use the same frequency - namely, any receivers in the vicinity squeal. Second, more powerful transmitter can transmit "on top" of the squeal and still carry useful information.
The first point is important as most aviation communication frequencies are simplex - it's VERY easy to accidentally transmit over someone else. By squealing, the receiver is told that the transmission is being interfered with. With other modulations, it's not often obvious this happened - with FM, the strongest signal wins and is demodulated (weaker ones simply disappear). Digital modes depend on how they're modulated - but it can easily end up as a string of pure bit errors (remember, the receiver sees both signals simultaneously) with no indications as to the cause.
The second point is important because an aircraft radio is around 20-25W, while ATC can easily be 200+W. This is important as ATC may be giving one plane instructions while someone else is trying to contact ATC and they step on each other. The plane receiving instructions from ATC gets a squeal, but because of the difference in transmit power, it's possible for the pilot to actually hear ATC on top of the squeal. If the pilot couldn't make out the instructions, the squeal alerts them that it's because of interference. Had it been FM, a plane could've stepped over and sheer coincidence would mean it forms a plausible, but incorrect, instruction.
Finally, you have to remember that any technology you implement has to scale from airliners to little general aviation planes - the latter often owned by people who don't have a lot of extra money. Canada recently got into a bit of trouble because they mandated 406MHz ELTs as mandatory equipment. Average cost with installation is a little north of $5K for a basic model, $7K+ if you want a fancier one like one with built-in GPS (versus one that relies on aircraft GPS).
It may surprise you, but most pilots aren't super-rich - they're typically middle class people where flying is a hobby. And unless you're a decades-long career pilot, pay is horrendous (easily just $16K annually if you're just starting out to $32K as captain in a small regional airline). Heck, if you fly, you'll hear some *terrible* radios.
So AM works just fine - probably still one of the best modulations around for the purpose, and given its operating conditions, has the best side effects at handling multiple transmissions, all at the cost of audio fidelity. But given that communications are generally well structured, it's possible to comprehend even the worst transmission.
For general aviation, the biggest thing about ADS-B is that it most likely won't be a panel mounted instrument, but using one of the cheapest pieces of equipment ever - an iPad. There are now a few ADS-B receivers that interface to WiFi or Bluetooth that communicate with apps running on iPad and smartphones that serve as data inputs, and others that include an air data and attitude measuring system to give you unofficial instrumentation as well.
Actually, ADB, despite being the APPLE desktop bus, was used in quite a number of places. Like in many UNIX workstations (Suns, HPs, and such). There were also some strange things that hooked to it as well.
As for USB - yes it was widely available on PCs. But almost no one used them - USB peripherals were horrendously expensive. I remember seeing a generic PS/2 keyboard for $20. Its USB equivalent, still equally crappy, was $50. Likewise, most other USB peripherals were similarly overpriced compared to the legacy version.
Heck, if you wanted to hate on Apple, you'd hate on them for going completely USB - because USB cost more, plain and simple, and there was very little USB stuff out there - keyboards, mice (try finding a replacement then for the freaking puck...) and USB floppy drives.
Heck, a lot of pre-iPod players used parallel ports and serial ports to transfer data alongside USB. Of course, at USB 1.1 speeds, it took a little while.
Oh, and Win95 OSR2 came out in 1996 with USB support in 1997. Win98 had USB HID support built in (but mass storage required drivers). The original iMac came out in 1998. Probably around the same time as Win98. It's considered that the iMac sparked the whole USB revolution where everyone post-iMac started making all sorts of USB things, rather than let it languish as an underused port suitable only for joysticks and keyboards/mice.
Windows did not get full USB as we know it today until Windows 2000/Windows ME, It was actually Microsoft holding back USB support (I think even Microsoft was putting effort into support IEEE1394/FireWire).
That's the direct use case. How do you avoid using Google without breaking the web? Google Analytics is everywhere, and webmasters often force you to redirect through Analytics.
Then there's all the +1 buttons. The Google CDN. The Google owned ad networks. Google owned javascript libraries used by many. YouTube embeds. And probably dozens of other smaller things webmasters use that are owned by Google in some form of another.
Nevermind on the mobile side, where you can have Google serving up ads (both Android and iOS, and probably others as well). Or deliberately tracking you (on iOS where Google worked around Safari's privacy settings).
Or if your buddy only uses GMail? Or Google Apps for Domains?
And don't forget about Google Groups, scanning and archiving Usenet. Or Google Checkout.
Avoiding Google is about as practical as not owning a car in North America. Sure you can do it in some cities, but in most of the others, it's not practical at all.
Hell, you can avoid Facebook far more easily than Google.