If the Apple ecosystem is too closed for you, resulting in you needing to jump through all these jailbreaking hoops, why buy an Apple product in the first place? Why not buy something else from the get-go?
Because Android makers are in a phallus measuring contest and its sucks.
If you want a decent phone with a usable sized screen (and none of thise "phablet" crap sized screen), Android goes right out of the door. A flagship Android phone with a 4" screen? Doesn't exist anymore - all Androids that are good have bigger and bigger screens - from a Galaxy S III to a Nexus 4, and while I can BARELY use a Galaxy Nexus single handedly, it's getting annoying when I compare it to my iPhone.
Hell, they're making phones as accessories to these things because they're so f'ing huge they're unusable single-handedly.
And no, I wasn't completely happy that Apple was forced into this size contest as well, though they do have a nicer implementation.
Androids with smaller screens all suck in some way or another - low memory, crappy CPU, low res screen, etc. etc. etc.
It's actually getting stupid that everyone's being a measurebator instead of trying to design a usable phone. Hell, we'll be back to the old Motorola DynaTAC sized cellphone by the end of next year if the rate of size increase holds.
You gotta make sure it takes at least 2 clicks to check out, or you're done for. I still wonder why someone doesn't patent the 2 click, 3 click... n click patent so for anyone to do business without tribute it takes 1000 clicks!
Actually, around the time Amazon was suing people for one-click, notably their competitor B&N, B&N actually implemented "two click" check out. I think they simply asked "are you sure you wanted to order this item?" which gives you one last chance in case it was a mis-click.
This is rarely mentioned in these types of stories, but I think it's worth highlighting: jailbreaks are security vulnerabilities. If these guys know about a security vulnerability but are deliberately postponing release so that Apple don't patch it before 6.1 is released, they are deliberately choosing a course of action that harms users. Are there any other situations in which irresponsible disclosure is so accepted, or is it just when Apple are the target?
Happens on Android as well in order to root them or get past locked bootloaders.
Though, these vulnerabilities are typically NOT remote accessible - you have to have physical possession of the device in order to jailbreak them. That's not to say there haven't been a few remote-accessible ones (just like there have been a few Android malware apps that root your device in order to install themselves), but they tend to be far more rare. AFAIK, only 3 versions of iOS were actually usable with jailbreakme.com.
If you have to have physical access to do it, all bets are off anyways.
People still see factory jobs as being for "stupid" people and they are generally looked down on, while even terrible office work is considered acceptable. This shouldn't be.
The same goes for trade jobs as well - even in North America they're often highly paid jobs as well. But given the tradeworkers don't go to college or university, they often are regarded as "stupider" than graduates. Even though they often go through trade school and apprenticeship, and these days the shortage is acute enough that starting wages are competitive to fresh grad salaries, if not higher.
But most parents will rather send their kids through college and university than to a trade school for the same reason.
Then you should be mad at the CC companies and banks who have been sticking it to ALL OF US whether we used cash or credit than to the store who is trying NOT to assrape you if you pay with cash.
Handling cash costs money.
Easily 1-5% at that.
If you're a little mom and pop shop, OK, it doesn't cost too much, but you're also not dragging much money out. I mean, maybe carrying $5k or so (the day's take) to the bank every night - you can do this and the only biggest problem is getting robbed and losing it (that's who uses the night depositories at the bank).
Someone bigger, though, and it becomes a real concern. Say a popular game comes out - many stores will hire an armored car to handle the day's take because you're easily looking at $100K or more in cash (out of probably $500K+ in total revenue - the rest by credit). Those aren't necessarily cheap (think easily $1000 or more). So that's 1% already just to handle cash. And a periodic car that comes around to pick up the cash from the safe. Hell, 7-11 does a lot of cash business - enough to actually warrant probably a daily car to pick up cash from all the stores.
Plus the cash-handling cashiers have to be even more trustworthy. Ever wonder why big stores stop all business when the server goes down? Because the server is keeping track of the till. Every dollar that goes into the till as cash is logged. At the end of the shift, the amount in the till must be close to the amount the register says must be there. If you ever see two cashiers exchanging for change, you'll see how one will take a $20 bill and exchange it for a $20 roll of quarters - because the amounts must match in the end. (And yes, it has to be close - within a couple of percent. It rarely comes out accurately due to human error).
Not saying credit card companies are saints - they're far from it. In fact, if you think Paypal is awful, try a merchant account. Biggest scam on the planet.
About the cheapest form of transaction is debit cards - where it costs the merchant 25 cents (and yes, they often ding you 25 cents as well, so a total fee of 50 cents) plus about 1%.
Of course, if any retailer told me I needed to pay 1-5% extra for credit card, I'd probably leave without those items. And I'm sure online retailers might also do the same...
I don't think anyone is waiting for lossless codecs to get smaller, they are waiting for the hardware to get bigger. It happened to compressed formats for music in the 90s and video in the 00s, now the teens may start to see losslessly compressed formats rule.
The storage is already here - 4TB drives can hold a useful amount of lossless video. A 1080p video frame is around 6MB uncompressed, at 30fps that's 180MB/sec. If you want true 1080p60, that's 360MB/sec, or about 3 seconds a gigabyte. A minute takes 20GB, 1TB can hold 50 minutes. 4TB can hold 200minutes, or just over 3 hours worth of uncompressed 1080p60 video.
The big problem has been the bandwidth required - lossless video requires a ton of bandwidth - it's why 4K cameras use SSDs for storage - spinning rust cannot maintain sufficient data rate. Or why video editors tend to be the biggest users of RAID-0 (striping, no redundancy) storage.
And most cameras don't use lossless to begin with - a 4K frame quaruples the data rate (turning our 4TB drive into a still-useful 50 minutes of video storage), but we're talking about a massive 1.4GB/sec. The ever-popular RED cameras use SSDs, and proprietary REDcode codecs in order to be able to keep datarates down enough for an SSD.
Want to go lossless? You'll need to go back to film.
I was cruising ebay yesterday and saw that one of the laptops had their windows license keys exposed in pictures in a readable format. I poked around some more and found that isn't terribly uncommon. Some people just don't think no matter what website it is.
Those aren't actual working keys, though most of the time. Usually on machines from the big guys, they're nonworking keys - because the real activation key is built into the BIOS. For earlier (pre-Vista) versions of Windows, they would require manual activation if you used them. Vista and afterwards, every version includes the BIOS check code that gets the license information.
For OEM keys though, they may work, depending on how Microsoft is verifying, but after a couple of times it's locked out... but those are often only on whitebox OEM PCs.
Heck, Google disabled searching number ranges after some enterprising folks used them to harvest credit card numbers - doing searches for numbers between 4000000000000000 and 5999999999999999 which will get back lists of credit cards (Visa/MC) that Google indexed because someone put the list up.
It comes at a cost - the Irish government is famous for encouraging huge foreign businesses to come in and set up to bring in thousands of jobs at a time at the expense of encouraging any sort of local entrepreneur. As a result, there are quite a few towns where a disproportionate number of jobs depend not just on a specific industry, but on a specific company within that industry.
When that company leaves for even cheaper pastures, the town's in trouble.
Except fabs are somewhat special.
They're expensive - the $4B Intel's spending is on the lower end of the spectrum on how much it costs to open a fab with the latest semiconductor technology these days. And that's just in building and equipping it - it's not like Intel could spend $1B now, then if the business climate is right, upgrade it with $3B more later - all that money has to be spent upfront.
And they have to run 24/7 to make up the return on that cash outlay.
Plus, abandoning a fab is expensive - competitors would love to buy over your old fab and will take all the employees with them.
This isn't like a Google or other internet company that can move at the drop of a hat - this is a serious investment of money, and Intel's likely to continue operations for a LONG time even after the initial technology's obsolete - because starting a new fab is another huge outlay of cash.
As an American who emigrated to another country, this difference is really visible after you have been out of the USA for some time. I live in the EU, and the consumer protections are so much stronger. Much of what goes on as "normal business" in the USA is illegal here, with regard to consumer protection. Apple learned this the hard way, when they got slapped hard in several EU countries for attempting to induce customers to buy AppleCare protection when under EU law, consumers are entitled to 2 years of warranty protection, not just a single year as in the USA. Yes, I know AppleCare is more than just normal warranty coverage, but they tried to imply that without it you get only 1 year warranty which is absolutely not according to EU law and misleading to the consumer.
TINSTAAFL.
You know, Europeans CONSTANTLY complain about how much more expensive something is in the EU. Like how a MacBook Pro is US$2200, and EUR2200 over there as well. Given the exchange rate, that's over 40% more expensive in the EU than in the US. Granted, some of it is because of sales tax being inclusive instead of exclusive (and much higher sales taxes - 20%) and import duties, but a lot of it is also because you're buying "extended warranties" all the time.
AppleCare does include more than an extended warranty (it adds phone support beyond 90 days, and gives you access to a bunch of free diagnostic tools), but in essence in the EU, it's bundled in (minus phone support and stuff, but that doesn't make it worth it, IMHO).
Or how in the US, whenever a store (b&m or internet) asks "do you want to buy an extended warranty?" you say no, but in the EU, the law effectively says yes for you (and the price is built in).
And I believe the laws don't apply if you import - many EU folks have taken to buying stuff from the US because it's much cheaper - but again, they don't get the protections for that, even on things like Apple products. Apple was fined because they confused people who bought stuff in the EU, but they can legitimately turn down service for computers bought in the US after the US warranty period is expired but before the mandated EU one. After all, they can make you return it to the store... in the US...).
Now, someone will chime in about educating yourself as a consumer, but we all know that most companies do not want an educated consumer, because educated consumers won't fall for their marketing tricks. Companies have proven time and again that without some amount of regulation they will act only in their best interests, which is to make as much money for their stakeholders as possible. The absence of regulation, as in the USA, lets companies get away with a lot more at the expense and detriment of the consumer.
True, However, one has to consider a difference in cultures, as well. Americans tend to favor choice over being forced into things - which is why stuff often have shorter warranties for lower prices - Americans generally base decisions on price moreso than other value-adds like longer warranties and other things - they prefer to have the option than be forced by law into accepting it.
Though, things like 90 day warranties are a joke (especially since there are manufacturers that offer warranties as-new, like Apple, if you buy a refurb from them).
End result - yes the consumer protection laws are much stronger and often the envy of the world. But you're also paying for them in the form of increased prices. In the EU, that's less of an issue since the culture there generally considers value over price. In North America, it's much harder as price is often taken as a higher priority than value.
Direct-connect can be achieved with IPv6 without having to set up expensive infrastructure for getting around NAT. Of course, you do have to set up your network for IPv6.
FALSE
Sorry, but in this day and age, IPv6 will NOT have direct connectivity at all.
Why? People will have firewalls. I know companies whose firewalls only allow port 80, 443 and maybe 21 outgoing connections. Doesn't matter if you're using IPv6 or IPv4.
In fact, in an IPv6 world, we'd probably return back to the early days of NAT - where you could connect and do some stuff, but other stuff mysteriously doesn't work. Like how early IM clients could chat just fine through NAT, but once you tried to transfer files or video chat, things didn't work.
Or how some games got you in the lobby just fine, but when it comes time to actually set up the game, half the people make it in, the other half sit at "Establishing connection...".
(Skype works over port 80, so it works as long as the firewall allows HTTP traffic). Hell, it's why SSL VPNs exist (even ones that do full connections over SSL - if you can only get through 80 or 443, youc an VPN using 443).
Not firewalling on IPv6 will just end up being the same as not firewalling IPv4 - easy way to get pwned.
A WTO-approved (WTO.. what a fucking load of shitfuckery THAT is) piracy campaign? That will have an effect on me, and you, personally.
This is someone taking someone else's shit, making money off it, and not a dime reaching the content creators (or distributors, but I don't have much care for them...). That's wrong. Flat out unambiguously wrong. Hey, wanna argue multinationals take other people's shit (resources) without compensation (money to the people)? Make that argument, but almost without exception that shit *is* paid for... it's just that the peoples of those nations are kinda getting fucked in the ass by their government first and foremost (as is the habit of government).
FUCK'S SAKE! I don't AGREE with the anti-internet-gambling laws, I think they're full of shit -- BUT THIS SHIT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME. Antigua needs to get the fuck over it and move on.
Reread your history. Antigua ran some pretty big online gambling sites - it was so big 5% of their workforce worked in the industry. Then the US applied pressure to cut off payments to Antigua's online gaming sites.
So Antigua retaliated through the WTO. No, it's not like selling alcohol to Shariah nations because the US isn't preventing that (it's the Shariah nations blocking imports) - it's more like the US cutting off sales of French wine by pressuring the banks to not allow payments to French wineries.
The WTO has continually stated (for over 5 years now) that Antigua is in the right and the US has enacted an unfair trade restriction, and to compensate for the loss of a significant part of the local economy, the WTO authorizes a suspension of $21M of copyright royalties annually until the US withdraws its trade block. The first dollar after that has to be paid to the US.
And don't think the US is very innocent in all this - the US is WELL KNOWN for ignoring the WTO when it doesn't suit them, and for enforcing the WTO rulings when it does. Just this time, one country actually has the balls to enforce the ruling against the US. Most other countries capitulate and even though they're in the right, they agree to whatever the US demands.
And $21M is but a drop in the water for the US entertainment industry (which does things in the billions). Hell, the RIAA/MPAA/etc argue they lose billions every year to piracy. $21M? Rounding error.
The biggest arguments going around is how much $21M is actually worth - does Antigua get to charge a penny? Or less? Or more?
And yes, it's supposed to disrupt the entertainment industry - perhaps by getting them to lobby for removal of whatever trade restriction there is. That's the entire point - the WTO is fed up with the US ignoring its rulings when it doesn't suit them.
The money might mean nothing to Sony but the embarrassment must.
It's an important point as it brings the whole breach back into light. And if Sony decides to fight it, they run a very real risk that some decision would come out during E3 and the reveal of the PS4.
Now how do you think that would go over - Sony reveals the PS4 with online this and online that, followed by a headline about Sony's online service security breach? To most people, that won't inspire much confidence in Sony's online offerings - after heavily promoting it and then seeing some headline about security breaches on their online services.
Even worse, the headline would be about a government agency that fined Sony for the online security breach.
The last thing you want to instill is fear in some service you're offering just days after offering it. The damage would be much larger than any fine. Hell, prefix it a few days before with some news about some Facebook privacy breach and you'd find the people would get extremely gunshy.
Given the speed of most government, appealing would really put the potential for an announcement to possibly happen during E3 or close to it.
Basically Google will protect your private data to the upmost of their legal ability from everyone except themselves and their clients:(/cynic
One could argue this isn't really about protecting your private data - it's just one of the times that Google's interest and yours align.
I.e., if Gmail started giving access to your email, then it devalues Gmail's service to that of other free email providers like hotmail and such - disposable email and spam box. Google doesn't want that because they get more analytical data if you start using GMail as your primary email. Plus of course, more eyeballs for ads - if it's your primary email, then you'd have windows open with ads showing all the time. If it was just your disposable email box, then most of the ads don't get eyeballs.
So it's in Google's interest to defend your Gmail account so you'd be more inclined to use it and give more information, analytics and eyeballs for it. Otherwise the ads Google shows would have to be paying a lot less money because the eyeballs that see it are of "lower quality".
These formulas tend not to work for humans. We have a much longer lifespan than mammals of similar size.
Humans are an exception because unlike most other species on earth, we use science to prolong lifespans. Modern medical science and other things have basically doubled our expected lifespans over 200 years (from around 40-ish in the 1800s to 80+ today). Even the lifespan in the 1900s generally haven't been all that much better over 1800. Though, kids born in the 21st century have a shorter expected lifespan than their parents. Not by much (it's just a few years tops).
We've seen it happen too with other mammals that live longer in captivity purely because they end up being well cared for while in captivity.
Our natural lifespans otherwise would probably fit the formula quite well otherwise.
If you look at the businesses that have succeeded using FOSS every. single. one. has used one of the "blessed three" business models, selling support, selling hardware, holding out a tin cup.
Google.
Google doesn't provide FOSS as a product. They provide search as a hook to attract eyeballs for ads (AdSense, DoubleClick, AdMob, practically all the other advertising companies are owned by Google).
Otherwise we could say Apple as well since they use and provide a fair amount of FOSS. But FOSS is not their primary business as well. It's just incidental to their primary business.
This article is referring to FOSS companies who provide FOSS as a product - RedHat, MySQL, probably even others like Codeweavers (WINE paid support).
Compare though to Mac OS X. It hasn't been dumbed down in that way, clearly Microsoft is copying someone else. Yes, there's a feature in Mac OS to bring up gigantic icons to click on to start apps, but it is not there by default and not shoved in your face as the only option. Mac OS also does not send you to the Apple store all the time, and you can use the application that are preinstalled without needing an Apple ID.
Apple does get flak for their UI though. From the brushed metal everywhere to the to the current stitched leather stuff.
Though, Apple tends to prefer to keep stuff as similar as possible - they realize muscle memory is very important and people like things to be as similar as possible. To a fault, actually - people are saying iOS ahd OS X look "dated" because they're not "modern" or "fast changing" like how Linux or Windows UIs keep changing and how iOS and OS X look static. After all, iOS 6 today looks pretty damn similar to iOS/iPhone 1.0 back in 2007. For better or worse.
Yet now, how many newer Automatic cars are adding tiptronic, or sports shift? - Creating some bastardised hybrid of Auto and Manual that just feels and responds "wrong"
I find the tiptronics useful for when you need to shift down prior to reaching a hill or when you really want to coast in a higher gear. Not as a substitute for a manual transmission - most of the time the transmission does a reasonable job of picking the right gear, but sometimes I know I need to shift down. Like a bridge I commute over that's really steep and really does require a lower gear if you want to accelerate or just maintain speed. Being able to tell the gearbox to downshift before the engine starts struggling makes driving just a bit smoother.
If I wanted a manual, I'd get a manual. But most of the time, an automatic "just works" and having the ability override the transmission is a bonus.
Microsoft will never allow one of its modern file system to have an "official" implementation on free operating systems.
What do you mean by 'official'? You mean from Microsoft? If so yes they probably won't create a Linux implementation, but that's cool because there's this project, there's Paragon and there's Tuxera if you really want exFAT on Linux, just like NTFS. Alternatively you could use the ext file systems.
ExFAT is available for Linux. It's just that Microsoft's licensing terms prohibit an open-source implementation. And they're patent licenses, I believe, as well, not just getting at the specs.
This is just one that's licensed under open-source terms, but one that Microsoft will probably not allow you to get licensed for. Or, in other words, there'll be a package for it on Google Play soon enough (though not for Jelly Bean, because Jelly Bean's Play Store introduces DRM and that's incompatible with GPLv3. But all the other Androids are fine as APKs then are not DRMed).
I have U-Verse, and they do a real chickenshit maneuver with the DVR, in that somehow it phones home before it will play any of YOUR LOCAL RECORDED CONTENT. This sucks, I assume it's to make sure you're not a deadbeat before it will play or do anything else but if your internet is out, for whatever reason, you can't even watch your locally recorded shows to fill time until the service returns.
Did I say that sucks?
Most cablebox DVRs do that as well - they check to make sure you're subscribed to cable first before playing back recorded content. I would guess satellite ones are the same too (except TiVo).
Third party DVRs like TiVo, Myth, and Windows Media Center, obviously don't have this restriction.
Usually when you see a "demand" for NAT on ipv6 its people who don't understand the relationship between a statefull firewall and NAT, and they really are "demanding" their existing firewall minus the NAT part.
2 advantages of NAT beyond firewalling:
1) Apps know there's NAT, and cannot assume end-to-end connectivity. With IPv6, determining if there's end to end connectivity is much hardware because firewalls are transparent - you may be able to establish a partial link, but not a full one because the firewall lets some of the packets through. In the early days of NAT, this caused no end to confusion with old protocols (e.g., FTP) where one could connect to the FTP server, but fail to transfer data. These days, FTP clients often check to see if their IP address is in the reserved range and default to passive mode.
And trust me, trying to figure out why some client only worked partially is a royal annoyance until everyone started designing protocols to be smarter with their connections so you don't have to open 100 ports to play a game anymore.
2) It isolates the internal network numbering from the external. For 90% of home users, this would lead to blissful ignorance - their ISP can give them a new prefix and if they lose connectivity, they reboot the router and away they go. Do it in a traditional router environment where every PC needs ot use the prefix, and it's bound to happen that the next time their ISP changes prefixes, users get messed up. And diagnosing why would mean having to talk to family on the phone as remoting in is impossible (no connectivity, remember?), or a long drive out. Or family meetings where there's a pile of PCs in the corner as "they can't get on the internet".
Sure, it's supposed to be transparent and smooth, but that just means it likely won't. And since every internet-connected IPv6 machine will have at least two IPv6 addresses, chances are it's going to be some VERY long conversations with family leading to guilt trips and having to do onsite support. Just get me a box that does NATv6, DHCPv6 that I can drop in and tell my parents to reboot if they have issues and things revert back to how it works right now in the IPv4 era.
Plus, for me, i don't want to have to know the new IP address of my printer just because my ISP renumbered and gave me a different prefix, which means I'd probably have to use the reserved address space for that stuff so my IPv6 addresses don't keep wandering around, or having to update my )(@&#% firewall rules if there are some devices I don't want on the internet (data caps, remember?) but which always helpfully sniff router advertisements and other such autoconfiguration things in attempts to get on the 'net.
Android is probably the best way to go, because Google gets far, far less profit from your Android phone than Apple gets from you buying an iPhone. Also, if you buy an Android phone, a lot of the profit is going to other companies entirely (like Samsung or HTC), so it's getting spread around more than if you buy an iPhone, where most of the profit goes to Apple.
Ironically, Google gets far more money from iPhone users than they get from Android users still. So buy an iPhone, Apple+Google benefit immensely. Buy an Android and don't use any of the data features, and Google doesn't benefit. (Of course, it sort of negates the point of buying a smartphone, but given most Android users probably aren't using them as anything more than glorified featurephones...).
Trust is a relative measure. I would trust Mega with storing personal copies of my favorite TV show, so I can e.g. access them on my tablet elsewhere. I wouldn't trust Mega with all my banking details, trade secrets, or highly sensitive government secrets, and would dare to say Mega has not been invented for that purpose...
Hell, I'm sure a lot of Mega's security design wasn't really to keep users data safe, but to protect Mega. Let's say Mega is raided and their servers are all confiscated. If Mega doesn't have access to the user's keys, they can claim they don't know what users are storing because to Mega, it's just encrypted garbage that Mega has no way of decrypting.
So even if ordered to say remove all known pirated content, Mega can say they complied if given a list of files to take down, but they can't go and scan their repositories since they can't tell - even the filenames are encrypted.
I really need my high-end desktop computer to do my job. How long until something will happen to this market segment will disappear as well? I cannot, for the life of me, see me doing my graphics, game development and 3D on a tablet unless it gets powerful enough for my needs.
It'll always be around. Just like most people don't need pickup trucks to do the grocery run, but we still have 'em for the jobs that often do require them, or for the people who feel they want them.
There will always be a need. The "problem" with PCs these days is they are a commodity. And commoditization is both a good and bad thing - for consumers, it's insanely good as it means low prices (and the starting price of a computer is only around $200 on sale). On the flip side, manufacturers of commodity goods seek out ways to cut costs to make money - if it costs $150 to make that $200 PC, then after all is said and done, you better have insane volumes because after everyone's had their cut, you're looking at maybe $5 per PC profit (and this doesn't include warranty).
It's why PCs come loaded with crapware (the money paid for thes advertising offsets a part of the cost - more profit), why you get things like 1366x768 screens (incrediblly cheap because the circuits and panels are cranked out by the billions) and cases that slice better than the best knives (because deburring is another step, and it's cheaper to issue gloves).
Basically, Intel's decided that the amount of money made by making motherboards is so little compared to the designing and other work that goes into them that it's cheaper to get out of that and leave it for the many motherboard companies to do. It's why IBM sold their PC division to Lenovo (IBM couldn't compete, or rather, the margins were much too low), or why Apple refuses to sell Macs below $1000 (the Mac Mini has risen in price, and doesn't come with a screen, keyboard or mouse which every $600 desktop PC comes with). Or why HP wants to "refocus", or Dell being in a small bit of trouble.
Or why netbooks died out for tablets, or why ultrabooks are popular with manufacturers and cost so much more. Or why Seagate and Western Digital are the only two spinny rust storage manufacturers out there (there are smaller players like Toshiba who make laptop drives, but I expect them to die out soon as well).
Eventually attrition will take its toll, but as long as there are people buying desktop PCs, there will be people making stuff for them.
However, as the popularity of other computing devices increases, be prepared for a rise in the cost of a desktop PC as it becomes a more niche product and manufacturers start demanding higher margins for slower moving products.
Reading about this Contiguous Memory Allocator feature, and since I'm currently developing a (toy) programming language in my spare time, I was wondering why Linux doesn't include a garbage collector as system-wide service. It's not easy to implement GCs and particularly concurrent ones, so wouldn't it make sense to offer garbage collection as an OS service?
In a strict sense, no. The OS kernel views the userspace as a collection of resource users - each process has memory (for code, data, stack, and heap), processor time (to run threads), and other things the OS manages - network resources, storage, etc.
The OS kernel only knows your program uses memory. It doesn't know how it uses the memory - just because the kernel ests up code/data/stack/heap sections with appropriate permissions doesn't mean you can't intermix your heap and stack, or use data as part of your stack, etc. So the OS kernel can't really do any form of "garbage collection" without knowing the intricacies of how your program uses memory.
However, an OS is more than just a kernel - it usually encompasses stuff like libraries, utilities and APIs that programs can use for convenience. These libraries generally are for user applications to make use of to simplify their life (e.g., the C library encompasses system calls into the kernel, but also many other non-kernel related things like math, string formatting, varargs, etc).
Basically your request boils down to a user library that handles garbage collection - the OS kernel doesn't care about it (all it knows is your process takes memory, in some form - it doesn't care if you allocate every byte yourself or use some framework to do so).
Still it seems like collecting data for no obvious reason, just to know that some one came into the store who spent time in the Shoes department 6 weeks ago.
It's all about analytics. It's how stores like Target (which sell practically everything) spend lots of money hiring statisticians looking for signs that said shopper might be pregnant. Because the average shopper who goes into Target for something quick then runs out probably doesn't know what other things Target sells.
Turns out expecting families have time pressure so knowing when they are pregnant lets Target send coupons for baby essentials, then later, for everything else in the store knowing that they'd be far more inclined to shop in one place than all over the mall to their favorite stores. Pregnancy is one of the few triggers that can effect change in such shopping habits, too.
Of course, the side effect of such analytics can lead to accidental reveals - the article mentions a father who was upset when Target sent his daughter coupons for baby essentials, only to find out later she really was pregnant.
And such analytics could be useful when tied to a loyalty card - while Target relies on purchaes to figure it out, knowing which aisles someone hangs out on could lead to potential future sales by offering coupons for products in said aisles, or even more analytical data.
I suppose for now the only good thing is such analytics are considered extremely valuable that stores aren't willing to share any of tha tinformation with anyone else.
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Because Android makers are in a phallus measuring contest and its sucks.
If you want a decent phone with a usable sized screen (and none of thise "phablet" crap sized screen), Android goes right out of the door. A flagship Android phone with a 4" screen? Doesn't exist anymore - all Androids that are good have bigger and bigger screens - from a Galaxy S III to a Nexus 4, and while I can BARELY use a Galaxy Nexus single handedly, it's getting annoying when I compare it to my iPhone.
Hell, they're making phones as accessories to these things because they're so f'ing huge they're unusable single-handedly.
And no, I wasn't completely happy that Apple was forced into this size contest as well, though they do have a nicer implementation.
Androids with smaller screens all suck in some way or another - low memory, crappy CPU, low res screen, etc. etc. etc.
It's actually getting stupid that everyone's being a measurebator instead of trying to design a usable phone. Hell, we'll be back to the old Motorola DynaTAC sized cellphone by the end of next year if the rate of size increase holds.
Actually, around the time Amazon was suing people for one-click, notably their competitor B&N, B&N actually implemented "two click" check out. I think they simply asked "are you sure you wanted to order this item?" which gives you one last chance in case it was a mis-click.
Happens on Android as well in order to root them or get past locked bootloaders.
Though, these vulnerabilities are typically NOT remote accessible - you have to have physical possession of the device in order to jailbreak them. That's not to say there haven't been a few remote-accessible ones (just like there have been a few Android malware apps that root your device in order to install themselves), but they tend to be far more rare. AFAIK, only 3 versions of iOS were actually usable with jailbreakme.com.
If you have to have physical access to do it, all bets are off anyways.
The same goes for trade jobs as well - even in North America they're often highly paid jobs as well. But given the tradeworkers don't go to college or university, they often are regarded as "stupider" than graduates. Even though they often go through trade school and apprenticeship, and these days the shortage is acute enough that starting wages are competitive to fresh grad salaries, if not higher.
But most parents will rather send their kids through college and university than to a trade school for the same reason.
Handling cash costs money.
Easily 1-5% at that.
If you're a little mom and pop shop, OK, it doesn't cost too much, but you're also not dragging much money out. I mean, maybe carrying $5k or so (the day's take) to the bank every night - you can do this and the only biggest problem is getting robbed and losing it (that's who uses the night depositories at the bank).
Someone bigger, though, and it becomes a real concern. Say a popular game comes out - many stores will hire an armored car to handle the day's take because you're easily looking at $100K or more in cash (out of probably $500K+ in total revenue - the rest by credit). Those aren't necessarily cheap (think easily $1000 or more). So that's 1% already just to handle cash. And a periodic car that comes around to pick up the cash from the safe. Hell, 7-11 does a lot of cash business - enough to actually warrant probably a daily car to pick up cash from all the stores.
Plus the cash-handling cashiers have to be even more trustworthy. Ever wonder why big stores stop all business when the server goes down? Because the server is keeping track of the till. Every dollar that goes into the till as cash is logged. At the end of the shift, the amount in the till must be close to the amount the register says must be there. If you ever see two cashiers exchanging for change, you'll see how one will take a $20 bill and exchange it for a $20 roll of quarters - because the amounts must match in the end. (And yes, it has to be close - within a couple of percent. It rarely comes out accurately due to human error).
Not saying credit card companies are saints - they're far from it. In fact, if you think Paypal is awful, try a merchant account. Biggest scam on the planet.
About the cheapest form of transaction is debit cards - where it costs the merchant 25 cents (and yes, they often ding you 25 cents as well, so a total fee of 50 cents) plus about 1%.
Of course, if any retailer told me I needed to pay 1-5% extra for credit card, I'd probably leave without those items. And I'm sure online retailers might also do the same...
The storage is already here - 4TB drives can hold a useful amount of lossless video. A 1080p video frame is around 6MB uncompressed, at 30fps that's 180MB/sec. If you want true 1080p60, that's 360MB/sec, or about 3 seconds a gigabyte. A minute takes 20GB, 1TB can hold 50 minutes. 4TB can hold 200minutes, or just over 3 hours worth of uncompressed 1080p60 video.
The big problem has been the bandwidth required - lossless video requires a ton of bandwidth - it's why 4K cameras use SSDs for storage - spinning rust cannot maintain sufficient data rate. Or why video editors tend to be the biggest users of RAID-0 (striping, no redundancy) storage.
And most cameras don't use lossless to begin with - a 4K frame quaruples the data rate (turning our 4TB drive into a still-useful 50 minutes of video storage), but we're talking about a massive 1.4GB/sec. The ever-popular RED cameras use SSDs, and proprietary REDcode codecs in order to be able to keep datarates down enough for an SSD.
Want to go lossless? You'll need to go back to film.
Those aren't actual working keys, though most of the time. Usually on machines from the big guys, they're nonworking keys - because the real activation key is built into the BIOS. For earlier (pre-Vista) versions of Windows, they would require manual activation if you used them. Vista and afterwards, every version includes the BIOS check code that gets the license information.
For OEM keys though, they may work, depending on how Microsoft is verifying, but after a couple of times it's locked out... but those are often only on whitebox OEM PCs.
Heck, Google disabled searching number ranges after some enterprising folks used them to harvest credit card numbers - doing searches for numbers between 4000000000000000 and 5999999999999999 which will get back lists of credit cards (Visa/MC) that Google indexed because someone put the list up.
Except fabs are somewhat special.
They're expensive - the $4B Intel's spending is on the lower end of the spectrum on how much it costs to open a fab with the latest semiconductor technology these days. And that's just in building and equipping it - it's not like Intel could spend $1B now, then if the business climate is right, upgrade it with $3B more later - all that money has to be spent upfront.
And they have to run 24/7 to make up the return on that cash outlay.
Plus, abandoning a fab is expensive - competitors would love to buy over your old fab and will take all the employees with them.
This isn't like a Google or other internet company that can move at the drop of a hat - this is a serious investment of money, and Intel's likely to continue operations for a LONG time even after the initial technology's obsolete - because starting a new fab is another huge outlay of cash.
TINSTAAFL.
You know, Europeans CONSTANTLY complain about how much more expensive something is in the EU. Like how a MacBook Pro is US$2200, and EUR2200 over there as well. Given the exchange rate, that's over 40% more expensive in the EU than in the US. Granted, some of it is because of sales tax being inclusive instead of exclusive (and much higher sales taxes - 20%) and import duties, but a lot of it is also because you're buying "extended warranties" all the time.
AppleCare does include more than an extended warranty (it adds phone support beyond 90 days, and gives you access to a bunch of free diagnostic tools), but in essence in the EU, it's bundled in (minus phone support and stuff, but that doesn't make it worth it, IMHO).
Or how in the US, whenever a store (b&m or internet) asks "do you want to buy an extended warranty?" you say no, but in the EU, the law effectively says yes for you (and the price is built in).
And I believe the laws don't apply if you import - many EU folks have taken to buying stuff from the US because it's much cheaper - but again, they don't get the protections for that, even on things like Apple products. Apple was fined because they confused people who bought stuff in the EU, but they can legitimately turn down service for computers bought in the US after the US warranty period is expired but before the mandated EU one. After all, they can make you return it to the store... in the US...).
True, However, one has to consider a difference in cultures, as well. Americans tend to favor choice over being forced into things - which is why stuff often have shorter warranties for lower prices - Americans generally base decisions on price moreso than other value-adds like longer warranties and other things - they prefer to have the option than be forced by law into accepting it.
Though, things like 90 day warranties are a joke (especially since there are manufacturers that offer warranties as-new, like Apple, if you buy a refurb from them).
End result - yes the consumer protection laws are much stronger and often the envy of the world. But you're also paying for them in the form of increased prices. In the EU, that's less of an issue since the culture there generally considers value over price. In North America, it's much harder as price is often taken as a higher priority than value.
FALSE
Sorry, but in this day and age, IPv6 will NOT have direct connectivity at all.
Why? People will have firewalls. I know companies whose firewalls only allow port 80, 443 and maybe 21 outgoing connections. Doesn't matter if you're using IPv6 or IPv4.
In fact, in an IPv6 world, we'd probably return back to the early days of NAT - where you could connect and do some stuff, but other stuff mysteriously doesn't work. Like how early IM clients could chat just fine through NAT, but once you tried to transfer files or video chat, things didn't work.
Or how some games got you in the lobby just fine, but when it comes time to actually set up the game, half the people make it in, the other half sit at "Establishing connection...".
(Skype works over port 80, so it works as long as the firewall allows HTTP traffic). Hell, it's why SSL VPNs exist (even ones that do full connections over SSL - if you can only get through 80 or 443, youc an VPN using 443).
Not firewalling on IPv6 will just end up being the same as not firewalling IPv4 - easy way to get pwned.
Reread your history. Antigua ran some pretty big online gambling sites - it was so big 5% of their workforce worked in the industry. Then the US applied pressure to cut off payments to Antigua's online gaming sites.
So Antigua retaliated through the WTO. No, it's not like selling alcohol to Shariah nations because the US isn't preventing that (it's the Shariah nations blocking imports) - it's more like the US cutting off sales of French wine by pressuring the banks to not allow payments to French wineries.
The WTO has continually stated (for over 5 years now) that Antigua is in the right and the US has enacted an unfair trade restriction, and to compensate for the loss of a significant part of the local economy, the WTO authorizes a suspension of $21M of copyright royalties annually until the US withdraws its trade block. The first dollar after that has to be paid to the US.
And don't think the US is very innocent in all this - the US is WELL KNOWN for ignoring the WTO when it doesn't suit them, and for enforcing the WTO rulings when it does. Just this time, one country actually has the balls to enforce the ruling against the US. Most other countries capitulate and even though they're in the right, they agree to whatever the US demands.
And $21M is but a drop in the water for the US entertainment industry (which does things in the billions). Hell, the RIAA/MPAA/etc argue they lose billions every year to piracy. $21M? Rounding error.
The biggest arguments going around is how much $21M is actually worth - does Antigua get to charge a penny? Or less? Or more?
And yes, it's supposed to disrupt the entertainment industry - perhaps by getting them to lobby for removal of whatever trade restriction there is. That's the entire point - the WTO is fed up with the US ignoring its rulings when it doesn't suit them.
It's an important point as it brings the whole breach back into light. And if Sony decides to fight it, they run a very real risk that some decision would come out during E3 and the reveal of the PS4.
Now how do you think that would go over - Sony reveals the PS4 with online this and online that, followed by a headline about Sony's online service security breach? To most people, that won't inspire much confidence in Sony's online offerings - after heavily promoting it and then seeing some headline about security breaches on their online services.
Even worse, the headline would be about a government agency that fined Sony for the online security breach.
The last thing you want to instill is fear in some service you're offering just days after offering it. The damage would be much larger than any fine. Hell, prefix it a few days before with some news about some Facebook privacy breach and you'd find the people would get extremely gunshy.
Given the speed of most government, appealing would really put the potential for an announcement to possibly happen during E3 or close to it.
One could argue this isn't really about protecting your private data - it's just one of the times that Google's interest and yours align.
I.e., if Gmail started giving access to your email, then it devalues Gmail's service to that of other free email providers like hotmail and such - disposable email and spam box. Google doesn't want that because they get more analytical data if you start using GMail as your primary email. Plus of course, more eyeballs for ads - if it's your primary email, then you'd have windows open with ads showing all the time. If it was just your disposable email box, then most of the ads don't get eyeballs.
So it's in Google's interest to defend your Gmail account so you'd be more inclined to use it and give more information, analytics and eyeballs for it. Otherwise the ads Google shows would have to be paying a lot less money because the eyeballs that see it are of "lower quality".
Humans are an exception because unlike most other species on earth, we use science to prolong lifespans. Modern medical science and other things have basically doubled our expected lifespans over 200 years (from around 40-ish in the 1800s to 80+ today). Even the lifespan in the 1900s generally haven't been all that much better over 1800. Though, kids born in the 21st century have a shorter expected lifespan than their parents. Not by much (it's just a few years tops).
We've seen it happen too with other mammals that live longer in captivity purely because they end up being well cared for while in captivity.
Our natural lifespans otherwise would probably fit the formula quite well otherwise.
Google doesn't provide FOSS as a product. They provide search as a hook to attract eyeballs for ads (AdSense, DoubleClick, AdMob, practically all the other advertising companies are owned by Google).
Otherwise we could say Apple as well since they use and provide a fair amount of FOSS. But FOSS is not their primary business as well. It's just incidental to their primary business.
This article is referring to FOSS companies who provide FOSS as a product - RedHat, MySQL, probably even others like Codeweavers (WINE paid support).
Apple does get flak for their UI though. From the brushed metal everywhere to the to the current stitched leather stuff.
Though, Apple tends to prefer to keep stuff as similar as possible - they realize muscle memory is very important and people like things to be as similar as possible. To a fault, actually - people are saying iOS ahd OS X look "dated" because they're not "modern" or "fast changing" like how Linux or Windows UIs keep changing and how iOS and OS X look static. After all, iOS 6 today looks pretty damn similar to iOS/iPhone 1.0 back in 2007. For better or worse.
I find the tiptronics useful for when you need to shift down prior to reaching a hill or when you really want to coast in a higher gear. Not as a substitute for a manual transmission - most of the time the transmission does a reasonable job of picking the right gear, but sometimes I know I need to shift down. Like a bridge I commute over that's really steep and really does require a lower gear if you want to accelerate or just maintain speed. Being able to tell the gearbox to downshift before the engine starts struggling makes driving just a bit smoother.
If I wanted a manual, I'd get a manual. But most of the time, an automatic "just works" and having the ability override the transmission is a bonus.
ExFAT is available for Linux. It's just that Microsoft's licensing terms prohibit an open-source implementation. And they're patent licenses, I believe, as well, not just getting at the specs.
This is just one that's licensed under open-source terms, but one that Microsoft will probably not allow you to get licensed for. Or, in other words, there'll be a package for it on Google Play soon enough (though not for Jelly Bean, because Jelly Bean's Play Store introduces DRM and that's incompatible with GPLv3. But all the other Androids are fine as APKs then are not DRMed).
Most cablebox DVRs do that as well - they check to make sure you're subscribed to cable first before playing back recorded content. I would guess satellite ones are the same too (except TiVo).
Third party DVRs like TiVo, Myth, and Windows Media Center, obviously don't have this restriction.
2 advantages of NAT beyond firewalling:
1) Apps know there's NAT, and cannot assume end-to-end connectivity. With IPv6, determining if there's end to end connectivity is much hardware because firewalls are transparent - you may be able to establish a partial link, but not a full one because the firewall lets some of the packets through. In the early days of NAT, this caused no end to confusion with old protocols (e.g., FTP) where one could connect to the FTP server, but fail to transfer data. These days, FTP clients often check to see if their IP address is in the reserved range and default to passive mode.
And trust me, trying to figure out why some client only worked partially is a royal annoyance until everyone started designing protocols to be smarter with their connections so you don't have to open 100 ports to play a game anymore.
2) It isolates the internal network numbering from the external. For 90% of home users, this would lead to blissful ignorance - their ISP can give them a new prefix and if they lose connectivity, they reboot the router and away they go. Do it in a traditional router environment where every PC needs ot use the prefix, and it's bound to happen that the next time their ISP changes prefixes, users get messed up. And diagnosing why would mean having to talk to family on the phone as remoting in is impossible (no connectivity, remember?), or a long drive out. Or family meetings where there's a pile of PCs in the corner as "they can't get on the internet".
Sure, it's supposed to be transparent and smooth, but that just means it likely won't. And since every internet-connected IPv6 machine will have at least two IPv6 addresses, chances are it's going to be some VERY long conversations with family leading to guilt trips and having to do onsite support. Just get me a box that does NATv6, DHCPv6 that I can drop in and tell my parents to reboot if they have issues and things revert back to how it works right now in the IPv4 era.
Plus, for me, i don't want to have to know the new IP address of my printer just because my ISP renumbered and gave me a different prefix, which means I'd probably have to use the reserved address space for that stuff so my IPv6 addresses don't keep wandering around, or having to update my )(@&#% firewall rules if there are some devices I don't want on the internet (data caps, remember?) but which always helpfully sniff router advertisements and other such autoconfiguration things in attempts to get on the 'net.
Ironically, Google gets far more money from iPhone users than they get from Android users still. So buy an iPhone, Apple+Google benefit immensely. Buy an Android and don't use any of the data features, and Google doesn't benefit. (Of course, it sort of negates the point of buying a smartphone, but given most Android users probably aren't using them as anything more than glorified featurephones...).
Hell, I'm sure a lot of Mega's security design wasn't really to keep users data safe, but to protect Mega. Let's say Mega is raided and their servers are all confiscated. If Mega doesn't have access to the user's keys, they can claim they don't know what users are storing because to Mega, it's just encrypted garbage that Mega has no way of decrypting.
So even if ordered to say remove all known pirated content, Mega can say they complied if given a list of files to take down, but they can't go and scan their repositories since they can't tell - even the filenames are encrypted.
It'll always be around. Just like most people don't need pickup trucks to do the grocery run, but we still have 'em for the jobs that often do require them, or for the people who feel they want them.
There will always be a need. The "problem" with PCs these days is they are a commodity. And commoditization is both a good and bad thing - for consumers, it's insanely good as it means low prices (and the starting price of a computer is only around $200 on sale). On the flip side, manufacturers of commodity goods seek out ways to cut costs to make money - if it costs $150 to make that $200 PC, then after all is said and done, you better have insane volumes because after everyone's had their cut, you're looking at maybe $5 per PC profit (and this doesn't include warranty).
It's why PCs come loaded with crapware (the money paid for thes advertising offsets a part of the cost - more profit), why you get things like 1366x768 screens (incrediblly cheap because the circuits and panels are cranked out by the billions) and cases that slice better than the best knives (because deburring is another step, and it's cheaper to issue gloves).
Basically, Intel's decided that the amount of money made by making motherboards is so little compared to the designing and other work that goes into them that it's cheaper to get out of that and leave it for the many motherboard companies to do. It's why IBM sold their PC division to Lenovo (IBM couldn't compete, or rather, the margins were much too low), or why Apple refuses to sell Macs below $1000 (the Mac Mini has risen in price, and doesn't come with a screen, keyboard or mouse which every $600 desktop PC comes with). Or why HP wants to "refocus", or Dell being in a small bit of trouble.
Or why netbooks died out for tablets, or why ultrabooks are popular with manufacturers and cost so much more. Or why Seagate and Western Digital are the only two spinny rust storage manufacturers out there (there are smaller players like Toshiba who make laptop drives, but I expect them to die out soon as well).
Eventually attrition will take its toll, but as long as there are people buying desktop PCs, there will be people making stuff for them.
However, as the popularity of other computing devices increases, be prepared for a rise in the cost of a desktop PC as it becomes a more niche product and manufacturers start demanding higher margins for slower moving products.
In a strict sense, no. The OS kernel views the userspace as a collection of resource users - each process has memory (for code, data, stack, and heap), processor time (to run threads), and other things the OS manages - network resources, storage, etc.
The OS kernel only knows your program uses memory. It doesn't know how it uses the memory - just because the kernel ests up code/data/stack/heap sections with appropriate permissions doesn't mean you can't intermix your heap and stack, or use data as part of your stack, etc. So the OS kernel can't really do any form of "garbage collection" without knowing the intricacies of how your program uses memory.
However, an OS is more than just a kernel - it usually encompasses stuff like libraries, utilities and APIs that programs can use for convenience. These libraries generally are for user applications to make use of to simplify their life (e.g., the C library encompasses system calls into the kernel, but also many other non-kernel related things like math, string formatting, varargs, etc).
Basically your request boils down to a user library that handles garbage collection - the OS kernel doesn't care about it (all it knows is your process takes memory, in some form - it doesn't care if you allocate every byte yourself or use some framework to do so).
It's all about analytics. It's how stores like Target (which sell practically everything) spend lots of money hiring statisticians looking for signs that said shopper might be pregnant. Because the average shopper who goes into Target for something quick then runs out probably doesn't know what other things Target sells.
Turns out expecting families have time pressure so knowing when they are pregnant lets Target send coupons for baby essentials, then later, for everything else in the store knowing that they'd be far more inclined to shop in one place than all over the mall to their favorite stores. Pregnancy is one of the few triggers that can effect change in such shopping habits, too.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Of course, the side effect of such analytics can lead to accidental reveals - the article mentions a father who was upset when Target sent his daughter coupons for baby essentials, only to find out later she really was pregnant.
And such analytics could be useful when tied to a loyalty card - while Target relies on purchaes to figure it out, knowing which aisles someone hangs out on could lead to potential future sales by offering coupons for products in said aisles, or even more analytical data.
I suppose for now the only good thing is such analytics are considered extremely valuable that stores aren't willing to share any of tha tinformation with anyone else.