And I suppose it's worth reminding everyone that this is NFC. Your phone would have to be in near-contact with the exploiting hardware. Not impossible I suppose, given that skimming happens with traditional payment cards.
Given the NFC reader I've seen is just another box beside the PIN pad and card reader, it's actually a trivially-doable exploit. Peopla already swap out PIN pads and readers in order to capture PINs and swipes. Replacing an NFC thing should be easier still with one that not only grabs the data, but installs the malicious code as well.
Or hell, a nicely done up sticker on the NFC reader that injects the malware. The thing can be passive and work off the NFC field like an RFID tag, and you can print a logo on it to make it look legit.
Or, I'm certain one could put something near an ATM keypad - mark it as a spot to put a cellphone so you can do your transaction while keeping an eye on your phone. In the meantime, that convienient pad injects the NFC malware. You'll find a lot of people will subconciously put their cellphone there!
This leaves two options: 1) manual installation of the certs by the end user which isn't very straight forward and could even become impossible 2) pre installation of all available certs by the manufaturer (now guess for how many reasons manufacturers aren't going to auto install keys for all available linux/hurd/bsd distros, yep there are many). Which leaves independent guys that release some spin of some distro out of the game completely since they do not have the manpower to ring up all manufacturers and `demand` the inclusion of their signatures on the manuf's devices' uefi rom and makes it much more difficult for guys trying to do mobile device gnuxes hanging there not knowing how to actually respond.
Given that Microsoft has made the option to disable secure boot mandatory for Windows certification, if you want to run another OS, disable it and it works just like it did before - boot from MBR, MBR boots partitoin loader, etc. like a traditional PC.
Windows requires secure boot. Linux could boot the old way standard. If you wanted to boot Windows, enable secure boot and go right ahead.
RedHad/Canonical are making things more convenient by having a signed loader so you don't have to keep going into the EFI to change the option. Given Windows' secure boot requirement, Grub or whatever is used won't be able to load WIndows anyways (the OS selector will have to be in EFI, like on a Mac).
Though, that brings up an interesting question - will Macs (which use EFI) be able to boot Windows 8? Macs don't use secure boot at all...
(And the Windows 8 boot process probably verifies the files it loads so modifying the filesystem to break secure boot that way probably won't work unless the files are signed).
. It is guaranteed that there will be remarks, double entendres and innuendos with huge potential of getting worse.
And besides which, what are you guys, 16? How about the first guy that actually gets out of line gets his ass kicked? Or are you all too juvenile to act like adults?
This. I mean - what's with the decline of the professional workplace? You guys are IT professionals, act like it.
Sure you can make a joke now and again, but being a professional also means making appropriate jokes. If you guys are snickering at boobies and all that - really, grow up. You can snicker and comment on your own time in the privacy of your own home - having some self control is part of being a professional.
Really, it's this sort of behavior that gives IT a bad name (as well as making people think IT are just a bunch of immature children who need to be parented in the workplace). If you can't be professional, at least act it - if you really must comment, find an appropriate way to be discreet.
It seems more and more these days, that malware is becoming user-mode to avoid the nasty popups that comes with trying to gain administrator mode.
Which makes sense as a lot of stuff you need to do as malware can be done strictly as usermode without needing to get admin priviledges. This one apparently checks to see if it can get admin or running in a restricted user account.
So even malware these days are learning to be friendly and compatible with users who aren't admins and not requiring admin for everything.
They also spend quite a bit of resources confiscating Kinder egg surprise (50,000 a year according to an article I read), because there is an "unintuitive" toy inside the chocolate egg and a child may swallow it
It happens a lot because they're legal in Canada, actually.
But you don't want to carry them over the border - the guards can get pretty damn nasty over a bunch of toys.
Until Mountain Lion +1 when that option is removed and you cannot install software from outside the App Store.
Can't happen for several reasons.
1) You need developers. Developers need to write apps and debug them. If OS X can only run Mac App Store apps, developers can't write/debug apps. Not a problem for iOS since you don't develop on iOS for iOS. You develop on OS X for iOS. But for OS X developers, you need to develop and test for OS X. So there has to be a "loophole" to run an unsigned app. Or a signed app with a test key (same thing).
2) Adobe and Microsoft and many others still use traditional software distribution methods, so their software (Photoshop, Office) will very likely rarely if ever be sold through the Mac App Store.
3) Some software is too expensive. Mac App Store has a maximum price limit of $999.99. Some programs cost more than that. It's why AutoCAD 2012 LE is in the Mac App Store (Autodesk calls the 30% cut a bargain - they make more money that way than their old distribution channels), but AutoCAD 2012 isn't (costs more than $1000).
4) Mac App Store apps are sandboxed, and there are entire classes of apps that can't work this way. Like utilities (disk defragmenters, data recovery tools, etc). Heck, if you need to install a driver for some peripherals, you can't do it via the App Store. This also leads to all Mac App Store apps have to be self contained, and it's not always possible to do it (see Adobe and Microsoft, again).
5) No demo apps in Mac App Store. Sure you can use IAP to fix that issue, but Apple has generally recommended developers host the demo apps on their own site.
Sure, some of these issues are policy related, but others are pretty gnarly, and even the Mac App Store doesn't compare to Steam. Steam has way more funcitonality for a store than the Mac App Store does (notably, being able to authenticate a retail purchase and letting apps have installers).
We as an industry haven't given people easy ways to do these things. It is *our* fault, not theirs.
Exactly. Even in the geek world this is true.
Want to know why SSH is the premier protocol for remotely doing stuff? Because it does it all so easily. If you used rsh, or telnet, forwarding an X session was fraught with danger and extremely tricky, having ot mess with xhost or other xauth crap.
With SSH, you just add -X. Done. Easy.
Ditto with proxying - SSH supports SOCKS or manual port forwarding. The other protocols require running programs manually - they can't tunnel traffic through an existing connection (also handy if you're firewalling stuff - it's easy to just open one port for your SSH server rather than many).
and a really, really nasty one. Take a look at the 'in demand' jobs. Aircraft Mechanic? CAD? What is this, 1980?
Actually, those jobs may very well be in demand - aircraft mechanics (remember, Amazon is headquartered in Washington, home of a rather well-known aircraft manufacturer).
And a good A&P will never be out of work - if you're not working on big iron, there's tons of jets or even little single engine pistons going around.
These are trade jobs - and for a lot of university bound students, they may be better off doing a trade than getting a university degree and debt. Depending on the trade, you can make quite a bit of money at it as well.
Considering a warehouse fulfillment job is a no/low-skill job, being able to get trade education is extremely valuable. I'm sure Amazon would allow you to learn to be an electrician, plumber, as well.
Sounds like the beginning of the iOS walled garden for OSX
There are three settings to Gatekeeper.
First is the walled garden - Mac App Store apps *only*.
Second is the default secure - Mac App Store apps AND verified developer ID signed apps. The latter is a program where developers buy a signing cert from Apple, then the developer can sign anything with it. Just like the current code signing certificate Microsoft has, except the OS enforces the signature.
Third is the "full open" mode - any valid executable can run. Developers probably will use this mode to avoid needing to get a signing certificate (and we'd hope developers are smart enough to not click on any random executable that comes their way...).
The second is default because there are a whole class of programs that cannot work under the Mac App Store. First - the Mac App Store has a limit of $999.99 as the maximum price - some programs cost more than that (e.g., AutoCAD 2012 vs. AutoCAD 2012LE (which IS on the Mac App Store)). Second - big names don't want to be subject to the Mac App Store terms - they want to do things their own way. You know, a little company called Adobe who makes a little-used program call Photoshop. Or a tiny Washington-based company who makes an insignificant productivity suite they called Office.
Finally, another reason is utilities - disk defragmenters, disk repair tools, data recovery suites, even things like hardware drivers cannot be done via the Mac App Store - they must be distributed separately.
Hell, developers cannot distribute a DEMO version of their app via Mac App Store - they have to host those themselves.
I think for a good 60% of users, the Mac App Store is all they need. For another 35% the default setting is perfect, and the last 5% are hopefully smart enough to be the ones to turn it off completely and not do stupid things.
As for the signing requirement - well, a developer can't sign any old binary as their name is attached to it. If they sign some malware, it won't be long until said certificate is revoked by Apple and all apps signed by that developer stop working (until overridden by the last option, or they approve the app again). So developers have an interest in not signing everything.
Heck, Firefox did the smart thing and got TWO certificates - release builds are signed with one, and nightly builds and such are auto-signed with the other. This prevents the revokation of one key from disrupting firefox development.
What is truly shocking is the long-term loss of effectiveness of unions and/or their complete lack of influence in hi-tech 'salary' jobs. Sure, you can poo poo Unions, their largess in the '70s even their (apparently) corrupt leadership, but it is high time that Americans came to realize the positive benefits of Union membership and the need to maintain leverage against corporate leadership that seems willing to work us to death and feed our remains back to the rest of the workers (for the sake of shareholder value dammit)
I think the problem isn't unions, it's the image. The traditional union generally goes for the lesser skilled (or no skill) jobs - basically blue-collar work. At least, that's the general impression of unionized workers. Even though unions are often involved in the trades, tradeworkers (like your electrician and plumber) are seen more as independent contractors than unionists. And the more skilled you get, the less a union is seen as relevant.
It may be a bit of conceit on the part of the learned, I suppose - they're "smart enough" to handle their own job affairs without having someone else dictate their working conditions.
Hell, do we consider the players "associations" for sports as unions? That's what they are, after all, Perhaps it's because when they go on strike, they don't bother to picket so we never see that aspect of unionism. Hell, considering some sports require membership in the "player association" in order to play professionally. Or actor's unions.
Except well, businesses have figured out how to exploit the shiny and cool to tie said workers to the workplace even more. Think about a blackberry - once a status symbol a decade ago, everywhere a half decade ago, and only loosening its grip now, purely because of the new shinies - BYOD and work-provided iPhones and Androids.
Hell, even stuff like unpaid overtime, working more than 40 hours a week regularly, even the unpaid intern are all IT quirks that really don't exist anywhere else. (Unpaid interns especially - internships generally pay, sometimes quite well, in practically every other industry except IT.)
It's perhaps our believe that we're "too smart" to need unions that capitalists have figured out how to manipulate into worse working conditions that the rest of the working world accepts. Even in North America (let's ignore Europe and their working conditions for obvious reasons).
What the hell is wrong with feeling like a suburb? Having grown up in a small rural town I'm baffled by the arrogance and snobbery of city dwellers who'd prefer having homeless people sleeping in their doorway than to go somewhere else. Why is suburb a dirty word? What is in SF that anyone would want to live there and put up with all its problems?
Depends. I live in the suburbs, but I work downtown. During lunchtime, I go out for walks and see/do stuff.
I had to work a better part of a year at a business park in a suburb, and it was awful - during lunch, you could walk and see... sidewalks, trees, the highway, that's it. Taking a walk during lunch (which is good for your health, especially if all you do is sit at your desk) became rather monotonous - there wasn't any energy to it.
I suppose I could see why people become sedentiary - in a business park, there's nothing to do, so most people just spend lunch at their desk goofing off and not getting some fresh air or exercise (however little).
Plus nothing special to eat - either make it yourself day after day, or eat from the one restaurant within walking distance. If you want anymore variety, you hvae to drive there. So getting errands done during lunch was practically impossible (downtown, I just walk to where I need to go - no car required).
I'm sure MicroUSB and other industry-standard connectors weren't considered. For how many years now has Apple been the last holdout with proprietary connectors?
Even if they did they'd still find a way to make it proprietary with something like the charger resistor trick or the headphone recess.
Rumors have it that the port IS micro-USB compatible. As in, you can plug in a micro-USB cable into it and connect/charge via USB. This would make sense as Apple right now supplies an adapter for EU iDevices for micro USB. This would get rid of the adapter, but not the funtionality of the port.
If you want the additional connectivity (line-in/out, component video, HDMI, etc) you need the other pins, which would be used for say, a connector adapter. (There are way too many 30-pin accessories out there).
As for the resistors - they are a brilliant way to do USB charging - because USB chargers do NOT communicate how much power they can provide. If you plug in a USB charger, a device can't tell if it can pull more than 500mA (even then it shouldn't assume it can - USB spec calls for 100mA until you positively identify a charger or get enumerated and told you can draw 500mA). But the charger can provide 800mA, 1A, 2A or more, and you need a quick-and-cheap way of telling the host device that fact. The resistors do that (by pulling the D+/D- lines certain ways).
FYI - the USB charger spec shorts D+ to D-, and special resistors inside the device detect that (usually through a special line state). But again, it doesn't tell you how much you can draw - a tablet might want 2A, but it can't tell for sure if you plugged it into a wimpy 500mA one. (We've blown a few during development - notably the cheapass chinese crap adapters with no protection).
An even more proprietary way would be to include an enumeration chip that tells the device over USB what it can draw (which Apple does with its Macs to do "high-speed" charging - the ports negotiate with iDevices to provide I think 1A current).
The USB spec is violated so often that you can make a rather useless USB host if you adhered to it, for example. The 100mA one is routinely violated (embedded devices with USB host often only provide 100mA). USB hard drives count on the fact most PC manufacturers are cheap and put only one overcurrent switch for a gang of ports (e.g., a 4 port might use a 2A overcurrent switch) so they can draw 1A+ when spinning up without tripping the switch (see this a lot).
Or USB chargers that provide 500mA, and overheat/explode wen some device goes right ahead and tries to draw 1A.
Rumours are though that they're finally getting rid of their proprietary 30 pin connector. Of course, they'r replacing it with a smaller proprietary connector. I'm assuming that they have some sort of adapter, as this does give people a good excuse to extract themselves from the lock-in if they have to replace docks, etc, anyway.
The OTHER rumor is that the new smaller connector will be mechanically compatible with micro-USB, so you could use a micro-USB cable in it directly. If you plug in a proprietary cable, you get much more.
Which isn't really unusual - this already exists as MHL (mobile high-speed link) - as a way to get HDMI through a connector that works a lot like micro-USB. You plug in a micro-USB cable and it connects like USB. You plug in a MHL cable and get HDMI output.
Of course, I do have questions about the 12V and 20V outputs - first, 20V isn't exactly common in a PC (especially at 5A). Firewire was spec'd up to 30V, and even then plugging in a Firewire device into a Mac was risky because the devices were tested on PC hosts (with host cards only supporting 12V) rather than a Mac (which provides up to max spec'd voltage). It has resulted in destruction of many firewire hubs untested with the higher end of the spec'd voltages. It's only a matter of time until someone accidentally misprograms their USB descriptors and then *bang*!
Seriously, when I submitted that I was staring down ~10 hours of "Swamp Brothers," "Swamp Loggers" and "Gator Boys." Seriously. Now NatGeo is following suit... am I just getting curmudgeonly? How is this happening?
it's called survival in an a-la-carte world.
Discovery Channel knows that half the channels will die in an a-la-carte model, so the goal is to shuffle programming between all of them. Discovery Channel gets the high-rated reality shows. Then another Discovery-owned channel will run some other unique series and the main Discovery will run them years later, etc.
The goal is to spread the high-rated shows amongst the various channels so even in an a-la-carte model, you end up picking up several of them, thus ensuring the survival of the other channels.
The same thing is happening with History, too.
They know they'll lose a few people who don't want to watch new episodes of Mythbusters and thus not get whatever channel that's on, but it'll be far fewer than having ot drop three-quarters of their channels as they won't be profitable anymore if they kept all the good programming on one channel.
Cable channels know it's coming down the line, they're just preparing for it by moving good shows first run elsewhere. After all, right now most people are in packages, so if you move a popular show to another channel that they already get through their packages, they'll get used to it and likely buy both channels.
I don't get it. He chose to drop his revenue from low to nothing, and argues that he *had* to do it?
Anyone else smell bullshit?
Nope, there's an easy explanation because it happens on iOS as well.
The app goes free - but now is ad-supported. It happens on iOS too - apps that were paid now become ad-supported and free (which kinda screws over those who paid).
So his revenue doesn't go to zero, it goes much higher since he's getting all sorts of analytic data, and other stuff he can grab from your phone. Heck, he may have been ethical before but some of those permissions can allow a lot more access than was used (Android's permission system isn't too fine grained, annoyingly - some permissions are pretty broad like SD card access and the like).
Every SMALL device is DC-powered. My opinion is to have only one AC->DC rectifier centrally in the building and have DC sockets in each room providing standard voltages, 3.7, 5 and 12V. Actually this can be done even now.
The problem is low-voltage DC sucks. Unless you want to wire them with huge-ass wires that are thicker than your regular AC wiring.
You see, losses through electrical wiring is known as IIR losses - they increase linearly with wire resistance (i.e., length), but increase with the square of the current. A wire carrying 2A of current will lose 4 times a much power as it would carrying 1A of current. To carry DC around the house, you'd still need to use 120VDC or so, and need a DC-DC converter for the last connection (i.e., a power brick, either built into the outlet, or carried around).
As for digital storage media - you're really out of luck. Flash media is really only rated for a max power-off data retention of around 10 years or so. Either you have to keep them powered up periodically, or you'll find it mostly blank and corrupt when you pull it back out.
allowing iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users to circumvent the payment process and essentially steal in-app content
Incorrect. Developers who check with Apple for receipts can't be affected by this (because there are shared secrets) and Apple provides a mechanism for verification.
Developers who don't check, though, are vulnerable to this. And always have - jailbroken users know about IAPCracker which does the exact same thing - faking in-app purchases. (IAPCracker also doesn't pop up a dialog, so you can check to see if its working for the current app by seeing if the regular IAP dialog shows or none shows up).
Of course, I wonder how long until the first incident of passwords stolen by this method come up - this guy might not store your iTunes username and password (and have access to your credit card or iTunes balance...) but you can bet all those people who pump up apps in the top charts will love to get a hold of this stuff.
Really? I got several updates on my G2, and apparently T-Mobile has ICS in the queue.
Wow, that's timely?
ICS was released 9 months ago! If it's still "in the queue", that could very well mean by the time you get ICS, it's been a whole year and a release behind. I guess 2013 when the next release comes out you'll get jelly bean.
You'd also think that by now, there would be more phones coming out with ICS on by default, but it's still few and far behind (Galaxy SIII being one of note). Maybe 2013 will be the year of ICS.
So much for Google's pronouncement that 6 months from ICS' release everyone will be developing for it.
As I recall, there's a lot of American CEOs with a $1/yr salary. I think Lee Iacocca may have started that trend when he went to work for Chrysler (or at least he popularized it). Granted, these guys are already filthy rich and can live off their assets/investments alone but it's still a nice show of generosity.
It's a PR positive move, yes, but it's also a tax-avoidance move.
You see, capital gains are taxed lower than regular income. When these CEOs file tax returns, they pay the tax on that $1 salary, but pay much less tax on the million(s) they made during the year through stock and other dealings than if they took the entire amount through salary.
You'll find they always get bonuses paid out in stock as well, for the same reason.
And the best part of it is the "99%" don't suspect a thing - they see happy fun CEO only makes $1 a year and is so generous, etc. etc. etc.
It's pretty much the most legal way to pay a lot less tax per dollar than everyone who works under you.
I don't play my Xbox too often, and when I do it seems that rather than being able to sit down and blow off some steam in a game, I spend half an hour updating everything. This is killing 'casual gaming' for me. I know this happens on the PC too, but seems way less frequent for games like SC2.
Hence why Microsoft should charge $40K to devs for patches - so people don't sit around waiting ages for games to patch. Though I would suggest turning on your Xbox more frequently than twice a year - the big spring and fall updates do take around a half hour to update the Xbox with. Game patches luckily take maybe a minute or two (Microsoft's patching system is very space and bandwidth efficient).
I think the vast majority of that fee is punitive - don't release crap to begin with, and test, test, test, test, test, and test.
It's basically the opposite of the current trend in computing of "release first, patch later" (or even open-source "release early, release often"). As you said, you hate waiting for updates, and that's why Microsoft should probably start charging MORE for after-the-fact patches - to encourage devs to not get lazy and skip QA.
What got Valve's nerve was Microsoft making DLC stuff non-free despite Valve's wanting it to be free. Heck, Microsoft could allow a free patch with DLC deal going on (because addding DLC often means code changes) to encourage authors to release DLC and offer more "post-sale value". Alas, most companies would abuse this by making tons of $10 DLC things...
All the product designers and manufacturers of real products are going to have their products stolen and made by freeloaders at home. It will be the total and irreversible end of creativity and innovation. It must be stopped.
Yeah... Metro vs Unity, fight! And Apple is on their way to iOS X as well. I'll go get the popcorn while I watch from by traditional desktop.
Funny, Mountain Lion's UI changes a tiny bit, but not much, while Windows and Linux/Ubuntu decide they need a revamp. Though iOS 6 is supposed to be coming out that month as well... Mountain Lion... this month or next.
If ISPs are giving out/48's or/64's to users, I see it as a great opportunity to DDoS people again. Before, they had one IP address and if they changed their IP, you couldn't flood them off. Now, they get a whole range of IPs and you can easily get a bunch of PCs to just flood any address in that range - the bottleneck will be their connection. So unless they change their prefix (which probably won't happen too often), you could keep someone lagging out during gaming and they can't do a damn thing about it.
Quite a nice benefit to those who want to cheat at online gaming - you don't need IP addresses, just their prefixes.
The other thing is - IPv4 addresses have to get WAY more expensive first. Because IPv6 equipment is pricey if you need to upgrade at an enterprise level, and since the entire upgrade cost is bourne by the company wanting to upgrade, there's little financial incentive still. When you're talking about $100,000 worth of equipment that has to be bought brand new again... (or millions for larger companies) while their current gear still works...
Last time I looked at one of these Linux laptops, the price was higher than the $350 Windows laptop I saw at staples. Therefore it saved me money to buy the Windows version, download Lubuntu, and install a dual boot, rather than support Dell Linux offering.
All that crapware that comes with your new PC pays for the Windows license AND a bit of the hardware. Software vendors basically beg, plead and bargain their way onto the default image with an OEM, and the OEM gets paid a per-unit fee for doing it.
Heck, Microsoft offers "Premium PCs" that are free from crapware (through their hard to find Microsoft store). Guess what? They cost more!
Until you can get vendors paying to preinstall crapware for the Linux version, the price will always be higher.
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Given the NFC reader I've seen is just another box beside the PIN pad and card reader, it's actually a trivially-doable exploit. Peopla already swap out PIN pads and readers in order to capture PINs and swipes. Replacing an NFC thing should be easier still with one that not only grabs the data, but installs the malicious code as well.
Or hell, a nicely done up sticker on the NFC reader that injects the malware. The thing can be passive and work off the NFC field like an RFID tag, and you can print a logo on it to make it look legit.
Or, I'm certain one could put something near an ATM keypad - mark it as a spot to put a cellphone so you can do your transaction while keeping an eye on your phone. In the meantime, that convienient pad injects the NFC malware. You'll find a lot of people will subconciously put their cellphone there!
Given that Microsoft has made the option to disable secure boot mandatory for Windows certification, if you want to run another OS, disable it and it works just like it did before - boot from MBR, MBR boots partitoin loader, etc. like a traditional PC.
Windows requires secure boot. Linux could boot the old way standard. If you wanted to boot Windows, enable secure boot and go right ahead.
RedHad/Canonical are making things more convenient by having a signed loader so you don't have to keep going into the EFI to change the option. Given Windows' secure boot requirement, Grub or whatever is used won't be able to load WIndows anyways (the OS selector will have to be in EFI, like on a Mac).
Though, that brings up an interesting question - will Macs (which use EFI) be able to boot Windows 8? Macs don't use secure boot at all...
(And the Windows 8 boot process probably verifies the files it loads so modifying the filesystem to break secure boot that way probably won't work unless the files are signed).
This. I mean - what's with the decline of the professional workplace? You guys are IT professionals, act like it.
Sure you can make a joke now and again, but being a professional also means making appropriate jokes. If you guys are snickering at boobies and all that - really, grow up. You can snicker and comment on your own time in the privacy of your own home - having some self control is part of being a professional.
Really, it's this sort of behavior that gives IT a bad name (as well as making people think IT are just a bunch of immature children who need to be parented in the workplace). If you can't be professional, at least act it - if you really must comment, find an appropriate way to be discreet.
It seems more and more these days, that malware is becoming user-mode to avoid the nasty popups that comes with trying to gain administrator mode.
Which makes sense as a lot of stuff you need to do as malware can be done strictly as usermode without needing to get admin priviledges. This one apparently checks to see if it can get admin or running in a restricted user account.
So even malware these days are learning to be friendly and compatible with users who aren't admins and not requiring admin for everything.
It happens a lot because they're legal in Canada, actually.
But you don't want to carry them over the border - the guards can get pretty damn nasty over a bunch of toys.
Last week: http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Kinder+eggs+surprise+includes+harrowing+stop+border/6956919/story.html
Can't happen for several reasons.
1) You need developers. Developers need to write apps and debug them. If OS X can only run Mac App Store apps, developers can't write/debug apps. Not a problem for iOS since you don't develop on iOS for iOS. You develop on OS X for iOS. But for OS X developers, you need to develop and test for OS X. So there has to be a "loophole" to run an unsigned app. Or a signed app with a test key (same thing).
2) Adobe and Microsoft and many others still use traditional software distribution methods, so their software (Photoshop, Office) will very likely rarely if ever be sold through the Mac App Store.
3) Some software is too expensive. Mac App Store has a maximum price limit of $999.99. Some programs cost more than that. It's why AutoCAD 2012 LE is in the Mac App Store (Autodesk calls the 30% cut a bargain - they make more money that way than their old distribution channels), but AutoCAD 2012 isn't (costs more than $1000).
4) Mac App Store apps are sandboxed, and there are entire classes of apps that can't work this way. Like utilities (disk defragmenters, data recovery tools, etc). Heck, if you need to install a driver for some peripherals, you can't do it via the App Store. This also leads to all Mac App Store apps have to be self contained, and it's not always possible to do it (see Adobe and Microsoft, again).
5) No demo apps in Mac App Store. Sure you can use IAP to fix that issue, but Apple has generally recommended developers host the demo apps on their own site.
Sure, some of these issues are policy related, but others are pretty gnarly, and even the Mac App Store doesn't compare to Steam. Steam has way more funcitonality for a store than the Mac App Store does (notably, being able to authenticate a retail purchase and letting apps have installers).
Exactly. Even in the geek world this is true.
Want to know why SSH is the premier protocol for remotely doing stuff? Because it does it all so easily. If you used rsh, or telnet, forwarding an X session was fraught with danger and extremely tricky, having ot mess with xhost or other xauth crap.
With SSH, you just add -X. Done. Easy.
Ditto with proxying - SSH supports SOCKS or manual port forwarding. The other protocols require running programs manually - they can't tunnel traffic through an existing connection (also handy if you're firewalling stuff - it's easy to just open one port for your SSH server rather than many).
When it's easy to do, people will do it.
Actually, those jobs may very well be in demand - aircraft mechanics (remember, Amazon is headquartered in Washington, home of a rather well-known aircraft manufacturer).
And a good A&P will never be out of work - if you're not working on big iron, there's tons of jets or even little single engine pistons going around.
These are trade jobs - and for a lot of university bound students, they may be better off doing a trade than getting a university degree and debt. Depending on the trade, you can make quite a bit of money at it as well.
Considering a warehouse fulfillment job is a no/low-skill job, being able to get trade education is extremely valuable. I'm sure Amazon would allow you to learn to be an electrician, plumber, as well.
There are three settings to Gatekeeper.
First is the walled garden - Mac App Store apps *only*.
Second is the default secure - Mac App Store apps AND verified developer ID signed apps. The latter is a program where developers buy a signing cert from Apple, then the developer can sign anything with it. Just like the current code signing certificate Microsoft has, except the OS enforces the signature.
Third is the "full open" mode - any valid executable can run. Developers probably will use this mode to avoid needing to get a signing certificate (and we'd hope developers are smart enough to not click on any random executable that comes their way...).
The second is default because there are a whole class of programs that cannot work under the Mac App Store. First - the Mac App Store has a limit of $999.99 as the maximum price - some programs cost more than that (e.g., AutoCAD 2012 vs. AutoCAD 2012LE (which IS on the Mac App Store)). Second - big names don't want to be subject to the Mac App Store terms - they want to do things their own way. You know, a little company called Adobe who makes a little-used program call Photoshop. Or a tiny Washington-based company who makes an insignificant productivity suite they called Office.
Finally, another reason is utilities - disk defragmenters, disk repair tools, data recovery suites, even things like hardware drivers cannot be done via the Mac App Store - they must be distributed separately.
Hell, developers cannot distribute a DEMO version of their app via Mac App Store - they have to host those themselves.
I think for a good 60% of users, the Mac App Store is all they need. For another 35% the default setting is perfect, and the last 5% are hopefully smart enough to be the ones to turn it off completely and not do stupid things.
As for the signing requirement - well, a developer can't sign any old binary as their name is attached to it. If they sign some malware, it won't be long until said certificate is revoked by Apple and all apps signed by that developer stop working (until overridden by the last option, or they approve the app again). So developers have an interest in not signing everything.
Heck, Firefox did the smart thing and got TWO certificates - release builds are signed with one, and nightly builds and such are auto-signed with the other. This prevents the revokation of one key from disrupting firefox development.
I think the problem isn't unions, it's the image. The traditional union generally goes for the lesser skilled (or no skill) jobs - basically blue-collar work. At least, that's the general impression of unionized workers. Even though unions are often involved in the trades, tradeworkers (like your electrician and plumber) are seen more as independent contractors than unionists. And the more skilled you get, the less a union is seen as relevant.
It may be a bit of conceit on the part of the learned, I suppose - they're "smart enough" to handle their own job affairs without having someone else dictate their working conditions.
Hell, do we consider the players "associations" for sports as unions? That's what they are, after all, Perhaps it's because when they go on strike, they don't bother to picket so we never see that aspect of unionism. Hell, considering some sports require membership in the "player association" in order to play professionally. Or actor's unions.
Except well, businesses have figured out how to exploit the shiny and cool to tie said workers to the workplace even more. Think about a blackberry - once a status symbol a decade ago, everywhere a half decade ago, and only loosening its grip now, purely because of the new shinies - BYOD and work-provided iPhones and Androids.
Hell, even stuff like unpaid overtime, working more than 40 hours a week regularly, even the unpaid intern are all IT quirks that really don't exist anywhere else. (Unpaid interns especially - internships generally pay, sometimes quite well, in practically every other industry except IT.)
It's perhaps our believe that we're "too smart" to need unions that capitalists have figured out how to manipulate into worse working conditions that the rest of the working world accepts. Even in North America (let's ignore Europe and their working conditions for obvious reasons).
Depends. I live in the suburbs, but I work downtown. During lunchtime, I go out for walks and see/do stuff.
I had to work a better part of a year at a business park in a suburb, and it was awful - during lunch, you could walk and see... sidewalks, trees, the highway, that's it. Taking a walk during lunch (which is good for your health, especially if all you do is sit at your desk) became rather monotonous - there wasn't any energy to it.
I suppose I could see why people become sedentiary - in a business park, there's nothing to do, so most people just spend lunch at their desk goofing off and not getting some fresh air or exercise (however little).
Plus nothing special to eat - either make it yourself day after day, or eat from the one restaurant within walking distance. If you want anymore variety, you hvae to drive there. So getting errands done during lunch was practically impossible (downtown, I just walk to where I need to go - no car required).
Apple's attended BH over the years. This is probably the FIRST time they're actually presenting though.
They've been to BH usually as "plainclothes employees" who don't idenify themselves as Apple employees (they only get recognized if you know them).
Nothing really new, and it's really just to present some iOS security architecture that they released a document on a few months ago.
Rumors have it that the port IS micro-USB compatible. As in, you can plug in a micro-USB cable into it and connect/charge via USB. This would make sense as Apple right now supplies an adapter for EU iDevices for micro USB. This would get rid of the adapter, but not the funtionality of the port.
If you want the additional connectivity (line-in/out, component video, HDMI, etc) you need the other pins, which would be used for say, a connector adapter. (There are way too many 30-pin accessories out there).
As for the resistors - they are a brilliant way to do USB charging - because USB chargers do NOT communicate how much power they can provide. If you plug in a USB charger, a device can't tell if it can pull more than 500mA (even then it shouldn't assume it can - USB spec calls for 100mA until you positively identify a charger or get enumerated and told you can draw 500mA). But the charger can provide 800mA, 1A, 2A or more, and you need a quick-and-cheap way of telling the host device that fact. The resistors do that (by pulling the D+/D- lines certain ways).
FYI - the USB charger spec shorts D+ to D-, and special resistors inside the device detect that (usually through a special line state). But again, it doesn't tell you how much you can draw - a tablet might want 2A, but it can't tell for sure if you plugged it into a wimpy 500mA one. (We've blown a few during development - notably the cheapass chinese crap adapters with no protection).
An even more proprietary way would be to include an enumeration chip that tells the device over USB what it can draw (which Apple does with its Macs to do "high-speed" charging - the ports negotiate with iDevices to provide I think 1A current).
The USB spec is violated so often that you can make a rather useless USB host if you adhered to it, for example. The 100mA one is routinely violated (embedded devices with USB host often only provide 100mA). USB hard drives count on the fact most PC manufacturers are cheap and put only one overcurrent switch for a gang of ports (e.g., a 4 port might use a 2A overcurrent switch) so they can draw 1A+ when spinning up without tripping the switch (see this a lot).
Or USB chargers that provide 500mA, and overheat/explode wen some device goes right ahead and tries to draw 1A.
The OTHER rumor is that the new smaller connector will be mechanically compatible with micro-USB, so you could use a micro-USB cable in it directly. If you plug in a proprietary cable, you get much more.
Which isn't really unusual - this already exists as MHL (mobile high-speed link) - as a way to get HDMI through a connector that works a lot like micro-USB. You plug in a micro-USB cable and it connects like USB. You plug in a MHL cable and get HDMI output.
Of course, I do have questions about the 12V and 20V outputs - first, 20V isn't exactly common in a PC (especially at 5A). Firewire was spec'd up to 30V, and even then plugging in a Firewire device into a Mac was risky because the devices were tested on PC hosts (with host cards only supporting 12V) rather than a Mac (which provides up to max spec'd voltage). It has resulted in destruction of many firewire hubs untested with the higher end of the spec'd voltages. It's only a matter of time until someone accidentally misprograms their USB descriptors and then *bang*!
it's called survival in an a-la-carte world.
Discovery Channel knows that half the channels will die in an a-la-carte model, so the goal is to shuffle programming between all of them. Discovery Channel gets the high-rated reality shows. Then another Discovery-owned channel will run some other unique series and the main Discovery will run them years later, etc.
The goal is to spread the high-rated shows amongst the various channels so even in an a-la-carte model, you end up picking up several of them, thus ensuring the survival of the other channels.
The same thing is happening with History, too.
They know they'll lose a few people who don't want to watch new episodes of Mythbusters and thus not get whatever channel that's on, but it'll be far fewer than having ot drop three-quarters of their channels as they won't be profitable anymore if they kept all the good programming on one channel.
Cable channels know it's coming down the line, they're just preparing for it by moving good shows first run elsewhere. After all, right now most people are in packages, so if you move a popular show to another channel that they already get through their packages, they'll get used to it and likely buy both channels.
Nope, there's an easy explanation because it happens on iOS as well.
The app goes free - but now is ad-supported. It happens on iOS too - apps that were paid now become ad-supported and free (which kinda screws over those who paid).
So his revenue doesn't go to zero, it goes much higher since he's getting all sorts of analytic data, and other stuff he can grab from your phone. Heck, he may have been ethical before but some of those permissions can allow a lot more access than was used (Android's permission system isn't too fine grained, annoyingly - some permissions are pretty broad like SD card access and the like).
The problem is low-voltage DC sucks. Unless you want to wire them with huge-ass wires that are thicker than your regular AC wiring.
You see, losses through electrical wiring is known as IIR losses - they increase linearly with wire resistance (i.e., length), but increase with the square of the current. A wire carrying 2A of current will lose 4 times a much power as it would carrying 1A of current. To carry DC around the house, you'd still need to use 120VDC or so, and need a DC-DC converter for the last connection (i.e., a power brick, either built into the outlet, or carried around).
As for digital storage media - you're really out of luck. Flash media is really only rated for a max power-off data retention of around 10 years or so. Either you have to keep them powered up periodically, or you'll find it mostly blank and corrupt when you pull it back out.
Incorrect. Developers who check with Apple for receipts can't be affected by this (because there are shared secrets) and Apple provides a mechanism for verification.
Developers who don't check, though, are vulnerable to this. And always have - jailbroken users know about IAPCracker which does the exact same thing - faking in-app purchases. (IAPCracker also doesn't pop up a dialog, so you can check to see if its working for the current app by seeing if the regular IAP dialog shows or none shows up).
Of course, I wonder how long until the first incident of passwords stolen by this method come up - this guy might not store your iTunes username and password (and have access to your credit card or iTunes balance...) but you can bet all those people who pump up apps in the top charts will love to get a hold of this stuff.
Wow, that's timely?
ICS was released 9 months ago! If it's still "in the queue", that could very well mean by the time you get ICS, it's been a whole year and a release behind. I guess 2013 when the next release comes out you'll get jelly bean.
You'd also think that by now, there would be more phones coming out with ICS on by default, but it's still few and far behind (Galaxy SIII being one of note). Maybe 2013 will be the year of ICS.
So much for Google's pronouncement that 6 months from ICS' release everyone will be developing for it.
It's a PR positive move, yes, but it's also a tax-avoidance move.
You see, capital gains are taxed lower than regular income. When these CEOs file tax returns, they pay the tax on that $1 salary, but pay much less tax on the million(s) they made during the year through stock and other dealings than if they took the entire amount through salary.
You'll find they always get bonuses paid out in stock as well, for the same reason.
And the best part of it is the "99%" don't suspect a thing - they see happy fun CEO only makes $1 a year and is so generous, etc. etc. etc.
It's pretty much the most legal way to pay a lot less tax per dollar than everyone who works under you.
Hence why Microsoft should charge $40K to devs for patches - so people don't sit around waiting ages for games to patch. Though I would suggest turning on your Xbox more frequently than twice a year - the big spring and fall updates do take around a half hour to update the Xbox with. Game patches luckily take maybe a minute or two (Microsoft's patching system is very space and bandwidth efficient).
I think the vast majority of that fee is punitive - don't release crap to begin with, and test, test, test, test, test, and test.
It's basically the opposite of the current trend in computing of "release first, patch later" (or even open-source "release early, release often"). As you said, you hate waiting for updates, and that's why Microsoft should probably start charging MORE for after-the-fact patches - to encourage devs to not get lazy and skip QA.
What got Valve's nerve was Microsoft making DLC stuff non-free despite Valve's wanting it to be free. Heck, Microsoft could allow a free patch with DLC deal going on (because addding DLC often means code changes) to encourage authors to release DLC and offer more "post-sale value". Alas, most companies would abuse this by making tons of $10 DLC things...
You laugh, but DMCA takedowns have already happened to sites hosting 3D shape files.
Many of these community sites aren't actually ready to handle stuff like this, either.
Funny, Mountain Lion's UI changes a tiny bit, but not much, while Windows and Linux/Ubuntu decide they need a revamp. Though iOS 6 is supposed to be coming out that month as well... Mountain Lion... this month or next.
If ISPs are giving out /48's or /64's to users, I see it as a great opportunity to DDoS people again. Before, they had one IP address and if they changed their IP, you couldn't flood them off. Now, they get a whole range of IPs and you can easily get a bunch of PCs to just flood any address in that range - the bottleneck will be their connection. So unless they change their prefix (which probably won't happen too often), you could keep someone lagging out during gaming and they can't do a damn thing about it.
Quite a nice benefit to those who want to cheat at online gaming - you don't need IP addresses, just their prefixes.
The other thing is - IPv4 addresses have to get WAY more expensive first. Because IPv6 equipment is pricey if you need to upgrade at an enterprise level, and since the entire upgrade cost is bourne by the company wanting to upgrade, there's little financial incentive still. When you're talking about $100,000 worth of equipment that has to be bought brand new again... (or millions for larger companies) while their current gear still works...
All that crapware that comes with your new PC pays for the Windows license AND a bit of the hardware. Software vendors basically beg, plead and bargain their way onto the default image with an OEM, and the OEM gets paid a per-unit fee for doing it.
Heck, Microsoft offers "Premium PCs" that are free from crapware (through their hard to find Microsoft store). Guess what? They cost more!
Until you can get vendors paying to preinstall crapware for the Linux version, the price will always be higher.