Neither do I. Were I Time, I'd have held out for terms that favor me. Why let apple be king? If I produce valuable content (apple does not, emphatically), I can choose to play or not. I contend that Apple's terms were unsuitable- this is contained within the world of iOS, not the WHOLE world of digital content. Let Time make its own digital delivery scheme- in or out of Apple's.
Because Apple has an audience, that's why. Time actually was available for iOS - it's just that they had to do their own app, and in that app, they had to either use Apple's payment system, or direct customers to go to the website and buy the digital edition there so it can be delivered to their app. Now, if you're a customer, would you go weekly to Time's website and buy a new copy? Or get bugged to download the new issue and pay for it? No, you'd ask why can't the app do it automatically!
And Apple saw that people were doing things like this - some apps were monthly (a new app a month) so holding a huge backlog consumed a lot of home screen space. Others were doing in-app stuff and the user had to remember to check the app lest they forget they have 5 months worth of mags they haven't read yet.
So Newsstand was created to solve this - first, it's a folder of magazines so it keeps your app launcher clean. Second, it automatically downloads the latest version for you - if you've subscribed, all you do is pick up your iDevice, go to Newsstand, and see the latest covers.
Basically, Apple offered users convenience - an easy way to pay for periodicals and get them to their device without having to mess with different subscription systems, payment methods, apps, etc.
Time, being a holdout, was probably losing business to people who couldn't be bothered to do all that. A customer might look up for Time's publications, see they're not available, and think they're not there so they'll go buy a print version, and complain about "media companies not getting it".Then there are those who found the app, but couldn't be bothered to go to the website and buy a subscription there, having to answer all those questions - "why can't I just buy it through iTunes?".
In other words, Time was losing ground to everyone else. And convenience matters - I don't want to pull to download a new issue - why can't my iDevice pull the new issue for me and have it ready when I want to read it? Which is what Newsstand does.
It's the same reason why the Kindle took off where other e-ink readers failed (Sony had e-readers for years before the Kindle). The Kindle made it easy to buy a book - you didn't need a computer, you go to the reader's store, select Buy, and in minutes you're reading.
Periodicals are extremely competitive. It isn't unusual to hear of periodical advertising agencies offering customers cut-rate ad rates if they'd buy an entire year, thus exhausting the ad budgets of those companies for that year. Another periodical comes buy and offers ad space, only to find out they've bought all they were going to buy, too bad, so sad.
So Apple's providing a convenience to users in having magazines they want right there ready to read, with new issues automatically obtained for them without having to lift a finger, and a convenient method for them to buy subscriptions. Sometimes as a business it's better to hold your nose and realize that's your customers. Make it easy for them and they'd be more likely to pay you for your content. Make it inconvenient and you've shot yourself in the foot as people give up after a few months.
A lot of Apple fans and MS haters may be tempted to cheer, but the loss of 10,000 jobs in this economy means 10,000 families whose lives will been up-ended and that sucks no matter what phone you're rooting for.
And what's more, according to the article, a third of these job losses will come from Finland, with more in Germany and Canada. Decent western factory jobs seem to be going the way of the Dodo bird. Are there any phones still actually being manufactured in the first world? Even if Nokia recovers, what are the odds that those jobs won't reappear in Finland, but in China?
No, Nokia hasn't made much in the first world for years - they had manufacturing centers in much cheaper places. But they too had layoffs. Factory jobs suck - whether you're at Foxconn or in the US. It's all repetitive and boring and doesn't pay well because it's very low-skill (th eones who build up experience can make serious money, but it's rare).
No, the job losses in Europe and Canada - they're higher paying research and development jobs. Sure some of them will reappear in China and such (usually the more boring testing/QA/gruntwork), but the workforce knowledge doesn't move around that easily. And in fact, those workers are in demand - highly skilled, with specialist knowledge in telephony. You can bet Microsoft and Apple would be extending serious offers purely for the knowledgebase.
Have to admit though, it's pretty surprising that one phone on one carrier could shake up an industry. Nokia and RIM are basically the two companies left, the former had a significant non-smartphone business, the latter is basically treading water. But Symbian basically died (it's on life support), WinMo is dead (Windows Phone is not next-gen WinMo), PalmOS is dead.
OTOH, we see a new revival - Android barely existed 5 years ago, and iOS was hardly anything back then either (it didn't have apps, MMS, or even 3G). WinMo ODMs became top-line companies (e.g., HTC).
Still hard to believe just one phone did it. It only worked on one (crappy) carrier. And was offered in one market (the US). Perhaps that's why everyone else ignored it - the target market was tiny (Nokia was huge outside North America, so a phone only released in the US is a threat? RIM ditto - probably the same thinking as/. - it's all marketing and no substance, it'll die in a year as a flop. Microsoft, well WinMo has a feature list 10 times longer than it.)
Wait, you mean the American military has bases on American soil?! Well stop the fucking presses!
I think the conspiracy theorists are going "they're spying on us!!!" when in reality, a lot of those bases are used just ot launch and recover UAVs.
What people don't realize is these UAVs have extremely long range (especially with in-flight refuelling) so unless they are needed at a moment's notice, stationing them inside the US is a good idea - all your parts are nearby, no supply chain issues, etc.
It's just like the B2 and F-117 stealth planes - they all were stationed inside the US, and went on long 24+ hour missions involving flight to the target location, doing the work, then flying back to the US.
If the plane has the endurance and it isn't completely necessary to be able to launch within minutes, stationing them stateside isn't a big deal. And even if you do need a moment's notice, as UAVs are remotely piloted, well, they just need to station it there with backup being a few hours away.
This thing is indeed pretty harmless, but it scares me that vendors can set different prices based on arbitrary criteria. It shifts the balance of knowledge (power) from the consumer to the vendor. Companies do secret discounts all the time, but usually just for B2B relationships and one-off sales. Suppose Amazon shows me a book, and the price is $ 20, but if a better customer looks at the book, they see $ 10 (Amazon got a patent for this some years ago IIRC). We'd be in for all kinds of confusion, as comparison sites and review sites could no longer be objective.
Uh, Amazon DID do that! It was discovered if you switched browsers that you could get a lower price that way, etc.
And technically, price discimination is the ideal for the seller - instead of sales measured at where supply meets demand (and the area of a square box created between that point and the origin is revenue), price discrimination allows them to take the larger area under the supply curve as revenue.
It's more obvious in the IP industry - where movies/music/books are sold at difference prices worldwide - and the ease of which they're transported across borders leads to all sorts of strange nonsensical laws.
And no, review and comparison sites will still be around - because they'd be telling you what others paid and if you're paying more.
Price discrimination works purely because of assymetrical flow of information (capitalism is extremely egalitarian if both parties have the same information. Hence why knowledge is power and money - having just a bit more information tilts the balance in favor of its possessor). Price comparison sites hence still have a very powerful role - if someone can prove they got something cheaper than what it's being offered to you, you'll either try to get the lower price, not buy the item, or shop at a competitor. If you didn't know, though, you'd probably be the sucker that paid more.
"Protelâ(TM)s headquarters resided in Sydney, NSW, Australia until 1990 when Nick Martin decided to move the company to Silicon Valley, which was proving to be a hot spot for technology companies. In 2001, he changed the companyâ(TM)s name to Altium and moved operations back to Sydney. Then in 2011, Altium announced they will be moving their headquarters to Shanghai, China in the second half of 2011; again, to be in a hot spot for technology companies."
Anyone who watches the EEV Blog knows this (the host was laid off from his job at Altium last year), not-entirely-by-coincidence.
A little unrelated, on a recent trip we ended up in a Kia rental car, which did not drive any worse than the owned German made. Some noticeable difference was the much better gas mileage and the billboard next to the freeway touting 10 year warranty.
Korean made cars are a LOT better than they were 20-odd years ago. They too used to be junk crap that broke down more often than Fords (if you could get them started). They were, however, cheap. All it takes is to have an industry ridiculed so much it's the butt of jokes, and Korea decided they needed to build better cars because of it.
It happens surprisingly often - Japan (pre-war) used to be the butt of jokes on stuff. Post-war, they rebuilt and decided to get involved in industry and became the world leader in electronics and optics. Taiwan used to be the same as well - "Made in Taiwan" was common for toys and stuff in the 80s. These days they're a powerhouse of semiconductors and high tech.
China's definitely got the capability, if they got rid of their desire to just copy and imitate. Fake iPods, fake iPhones, etc. all take a lot of work to produce (they're usually original designs in similar packaging, and often their own software, so there are some very smart people there). That's all it'll take - avoid imitation. They have the skills and talent already.
Here's a question for you -> if you're in the Sales group for a company, and have spent years cultivating relationships with various clients. You're given a pink slip. A week later, you're working at a new company. Is it screwing over your old company if you contact those clients? What if you kept a copy of the Goldmine database from your former company?
The answer is "it depends". It's a common scenario, actually, and the court decisions are all over the place.
In general though, taking the database is definitely illegal, as is taking your contacts file with you when you leave. If you instead carry the information in your head when you leave, the company can't do anything about it. Basically the general guidance is if it involves taking anything (data or physical object (address book, say)), it's not allowed. But if you walk off with it (carrying nothing else) it's fair game since they can't scrub your mind.
It also applies to corporate secrets - there's an amazing amount stored in one's head, and other than a confidentiality agreement, not much else to protect it. If you leave, what you have in your head is fair game (other than confidentiality agreements).
A good salesperson can keep a number of their contacts in memory (it helps if they don't rely on contact lists and dial manually), and since they contact those clients a lot, they are probably the good customers as well. Just something to keep in mind.
Well it takes lawyers to say NO too. And they don't work for free.
Well, it also takes lawyers to say yes and hand over the reports.
Saying "no" is a lot cheaper because it involves the lawyer only. Saying "yes" means you need to get technicians involved as well and a bunch of other people, who probably get paid to do other work than look at logs all day. Plus, it's easier for a lawyer to say no to a lawsuit with 4000 John Does on it than to have to look up those 4000 people, retrieve their customer records, sanitize what isn't in the request, and then provide it. Saying no probably takes a lawyer a day to do. Doing the 4,000 lookups... a few days of several people including a lawyer to ensure that the request was fulfilled properly.
How come it's getting colder over the last decade with record levels of snowfall and cooler-than-normal summers? (I had heard by 2010 we wouldn't even know what snow is in Great Britain.)
Weather != climate. In fact, global warming has been shown to make weather more extreme - more hurricanes (a nice big hurricane can cool the ocean by a couple of degrees - it is a big heat engine after all). Summers will be hotter, drier, winters will be colder, snowier, etc. In fact, the melting ice cap has an interesting observation that winter wind patterns could push south bringing more cold air down with it.
So summers get hotter and drier, which makes farming much more difficult. Sure the northern areas get more arable land, but their growing periods are far shorter because of lesser sunlight.
The only real predictions are colder winters, hotter summers, and more hurricants/tornadoes (which is the natural way the oceans cool off).
can anyone join this, or is it only for patent holders who "throw their patents into the pool"?
It would be wicked cool if anyone, including independent software developers, could join and gain the protection offered from the trolls too.
Pretty much patent holders only. It's really a formalized gentleman's agreement that you will not sue anyone in the group over any of your patents, and in return, they won't sue you.
The problems with it are numerous. First, you have to throw in your entire patent pool, so the big guys with lots of patents will probably not join (IBM, Apple, Microsoft, Samsung,, etc). Second, patent trolls won't join (they don't have any benefit because there's little they can be sued for).
The requirement for all patents is obvious - to prevent cherry-picking lame ones to be included in the group.
The biggest benefit comes to open-source companies like Red Hat who own patents for defense purposes, in which case it's really a put-up-or-shut-up type agreement.
So why hasn't anyone else built something better already?
because the parts lines(in factories) came online just this spring? and apple doing what it does usually, buying the entire supply(the screen) for the line.
Well, Apple made some rather significant investements in their supply chain - they've paid Sharp and others billions to improve LCD screens, paid millions to the factories in Japan that produced raw materials for the batteries affected by the earthquake, etc.
So it's not just buying up entire supplies (when you think about it, if a Mac sells a million units, that's a million screens - a rather considerable amount of product to produce. Not counting ones that fail Apple QC and end up on the secondary market as cheap monitors).
There are other companies able to do so as well - Samsung invested heavily in OLED display technology, hence why practically all their phones have it. Heck, perhaps Apple was willing to pay for significant investments in OLED screen technology so they can use it in the next iPhone, but Samsung rejected it. After all, Apple doesn't throw you a billion dollars without expecting something in return.
Any guesses why they use different contact addresses? Priority? Different teams?
Probably because it's easier to manage? If they get a response to tas-contact@google.com, they know it only applies to the 8 associated with that address. Helps to pre-sort what domains are being talked about, after all. And if there's a discussion to be had between various parties, it's only 8 out of all gTLDs they could be talking about, rather than any one of them which could confuse them (especially since several will be disputed. Figuring out which of the 8 per email are under dispute is a lot easier...).
Same reason a one-person company owning a domain might have several contact addresses (e.g., sales@, support@, webmaster@, etc) - it just helps pre-sort email so the general gist of the email is understood prior to actually reading it.
What law? There's an ongoing court dispute that neither side has won or lost yet, and PRC did not ask the court for an injunction to order the app removed. That's notable, Apple didn't receive any order to remove the app, and the complaining company didn't even try to get one. That doesn't say "PRC has an airtight case and Apple could be liable" at all. It says "PRC isn't sure they can get an order and is worried it'll hurt their case if they try and fail, so they're doing an end-run around the judge in the hope that Apple will give them a victory."
You don't need to get a court order to get an app removed. Apple has a process to report infringement of apps, and they probably used it, just like Nokia used it to remove VLC and the FSF used it to remove Gnuchess.
And Apple generally does pull apps when there are disputes going on - like the VLC developers all fighting about VLC in the app store.
This would still be a story if PRC had gotten an injunction, but it would be all about how big a jerk PRC is, not how big a jerk Apple's being.
On a side note, the judge very well may not react to this kindly, as it is an end-run around their authority. Judges tend to react poorly to that, this may backfire on PRC badly. Pissing off the judge is always a bad move.
What's Apple to do? They get a complaint from PRC saying the app violates their patents, and technically that does violate the App Store agreement (since the app has IP encumberance and may not technically be available for sale).
Heck, I'm not so sure Google wouldn't do the same. The only difference might be that the sued developer might still continue sales separately, though if they were smart, they'd hold off until after the lawsuit was finished as well...
There's also a chance the developer pulled the app because of the lawsuit. When an app disappears, Apple could've pulled it, or the developer could've. Google has done it several times (usually because they can't code for iOS worth a damn and has had several serious bugs), and I'm sure many other developers do it as well. EA has pulled their old Tetris app and replaced it with a crappier version, for example.
Nowhere in the FA or blog that says Apple was the one who removed the app. It "was no longer there". The developer could've pulled it to prevent additional damages while the lawsuit is going on (at lawyer's advice).
For around $140 or less, the Grado SR80i's are pretty damn hard to beat. No isolation also (you can't really have good sound with closed headphones - the best ones with flattest response tend to be open). Spending anymore money on headphones is silly. It's strange, as Grado is "audiophile" but $140 makes it amongst the cheapest available. Hell, they're cheaper than the crap called Beats. The only downside is they can be hard to get (only sold at very high end audio stores - and probably the cheapest thing those stores sell).
Of course, for less money... Koss Porta Pros (not Sporta). Darned thing can be had for under $50 and for a "cheap" brand, surprisingly good. In fact, they've re-released them with slight modifications. Not sure if they're still as good, but I think you can find the old version new still. 80's looks, open design again, but for a set of headphones that are cheap, stunning.
It's not like many of their most lucrative clients aren't hobbled at the moment by lack of supply for their top bin parts. Oh, yes they are.
Hence the move to 450mm wafers.
In semiconductor manufacturing, the cost of the wafer is basically the entire cost - around $1000 each. After processing, it's a bit more expensive. From this they cut it all up and package.
But two important factors are size of the final die, and the yield. The larger the die, the less per wafer you can make so they cost more. The yield has the same thing - the more bad chips per wafer, the more expensive it becomes because the good chips have to pay for the bad. And there's a relation between size and yield - the larger the chip, the greater the chance that it'll be bad as flaws in the silicon or manufacturing are amplified by the die area.
So a larger wafer means more chips per wafer, which gives you hopefully less cost per chip (the wafer doesn't cost that much more over the number you get).
Chips get cheaper for two reasons - enhanced yields (as processes get refined) and moving to smaller nodes (each chip consumes less die area and thus you can fit more per wafer).
For chips that are fixed-area, like say a full-frame dSLR sensor - it can mean cheaper cameras as yields get higher.
For larger die chips, like the largest FPGAs (which can easily cost $15,000+ each) it can bring down their cost. And memory is die-area-limited, so larger wafers mean they can be bigger as well.
Do any PCs come with installation media anymore? As far as I've seen, you have to burn it yourself from a partition.
Hell, Apple doesn't anymore, and they were one of the last to do so (even putting it on a thumbdrive - the pre-Lion OS X MacBook Airs had a restore thumbdrive).
The only thing Apple does now is internet restore - connect your Mac to an internet connection and it'll download and restore for you, kinda inconvenient.
Use Netflix? It counts towards your 250GB limit. Use Comcast's Xfinity service? It doesn't. So you can end up paying more for Netflix once you exceed your 250GB limit, or you can use Comcast's service and get it all for "free". If that's not promoting Comcast's service overy say, Netflix/Amazon Prime/Vudu/ITunes/etc, I don't know what is.
Hell, why should Comcast route VoIP packets for you? They can jitter all packets to make all VoIP stutter annoyingly. Of course, they will happily sell you a phone service free from such irritants.
Or TV - you want Hulu? Sure, 250GB. BTW, we have a special deal if you take Comcast cable - you can use our Xfinity online streaming for free.
It's all about providers intentionally crippling the competition. Hell, you see it in Canada - where all the providers seem to rush headlong into UBB, forcing Netflix to reduce quality to save bandwidth. But of course, their TV over IP solutions are free from such limits. (And we have vertically integrated monopolies too - each of the big three own content produces, TV channels, TV stations, distirbution networks, last mile, and provide phone and internet service).
So they got caught once. It just means they'll be sneakier the next time around.
If it's like the Air, they are not soldered to the motherboard, they are on a small (proprietary) daughtercard. So it's not impossible to upgrade, just annoying and expensive. I guess that's the trade off for a 0.7" thick, 4.5lb laptop... no one buys Macbooks for their low price and ease of upgrade...
Actually, the Air's SSD isn't proprietary. It's called mSATA and it's used on netbooks as well, though the Air is the primary reason these days by volume sales. It's not as easy to get, but it's part of the SATA standard.
So no in the strict sense, OS-X is still resolution dependent, it doesn't have true independent scaling like Windows 7 does. However yes in the sense of this device in that it uses the HiDPI pixel doubling trick of the iPad.
So this screen is precisely double a 1440x900 screen, which is a pretty normal mid-rez 15" screen. What happens is if apps are flagged as HiDPI aware, they get presented with the real resolution and can render things with more detail. If not, they are presented with quarter resolution and all pixels are doubled in each direction.
I wonder though if it's possible for those of us with sharper eyesight to use all those pixels in super-teeny-tiny mode just to have the resolution - more windows on screen, more code on screen, etc...
The othe rthing is well, most ads for mobile are NOT on webpages.
They're in apps - AdMob (Google) doesn't make money serving up mobile ads on webpages, but whenever an Android developer wants to make money, they sign up and stick the ad in their app.
That's where the money is. Problem is, most ads are really unrelated to the app, and for Android especially, requires taking on way more permissions (though most people ignore them).
But, huge GOBS of stuff that can float a REALLY long time *HASN'T* been around that long. MAYBE a tree uprooted might make it across the pacific... or maybe it would be gobbled up or weighted down by stuff in the water before it made it across the ocean.
But a weather treated pier? Boats? Weather treated lumber for homes? Plastics? I'd think those might be more likely to make it across the ocean.
Exactly.
Stuff that invasive species would've lived on decomposed or deteriorated before they made it too far from their shores (or sank - waterlogged wood from trees does that). It's only in relatively modern times would something that originated somewhere be cast off and arrive at a whole new continent a year or more later still intact...
iPhones have 19% market share in China. Windows phones are NOT probably outselling iPhones.
Actually, both can be true. In China, there have been NUMEROUS cases where iPhones are re-imported back into China - either unlocked ones from US/Canada (Apple actually had to institute a policy about this). Plenty of imports from Hong Kong (including several busts of people trying to sneak 40+ iPhones and iPads back into China). Heck, you should've seen the return lines when the iPad launched and scalpers were stuck with product they couldn't sell marked up.
Several reasons for this - approval for the iPhone in China is very slow - and requires adding support for China's special wireless privacy setting (a modificaiton of WPA2) otherwise it isn't an "approved" product.
The iPhone only officially launched in China in 2011. But it's been available since the original, just not officially.
Windows phones may be outselling the iPhone thorugh official carrier channels (I believe China Mobile has a LOT of iPhone users, despite not selling iPhones), but the underground economy in iPhones is what's providing the sales.
Not as much as you might think, if you don't care about name brands. Search for "Yamakasi Catleap" on eBay. These are South Korean-made 27" monitors with 2560x1440 resolution. They cost $300-$320 including shipping. I don't own one myself, but they seem to be fairly well regarded by those who do. The panels are probably made by the same companies as the name brand monitors anyway, since there aren't that many panel vendors out there.
Or when you think about it - prices haven't really changed all that much. Prices on the low end have dropped, but good stuff is still priced pretty much the same as it has over the years.
A good 20" CRT monitor would've cost $2000+ easy in the 90s (one that could do 16x12 and not be fuzzy/blurry/blooming but nice and crisp). Heck, a 17" monitor doing 1024x768 flatscreen would've been several hundred bucks.
Likewise, nice monitors are still several hundred bucks. It's just that we're used to seeing huge 20" LCD monitors go for $100 or less that makes us think they're a good deal. It's the same as a $500 laptop - the good ones still cost a lot of money (want a GPU and more than 1366x768? You'll be spending $1000 minimum).
All that's happened to technology is manufacturers have perfected the art of making something to a price. A laptop for $500? What bits and pieces can we chop for that? A monitor for $100? Sure! What can we sacrifice?
Ditto 1080p displays - because of the commodization of technology, the video circuits to drive a 1080p display is insanely cheap - when millions of TVs are made, it's easy to make a very cheap computer monitor by reusing the exact same parts.
Anyhow, hopefully the Apple rumors are true and high-res displays are coming down the pipeline.
Apple used to charge iPod touch users for some upgrades due to regulatory/accounting regulations. iPhone users were not subject to this regulation and were not charged. Apple wants people to upgrade iOS, they want as few barriers as possible to upgrades. They are actually somewhat aggressive in pushing users to the most recent version. They don't really want people out there running older versions.
It was the Sarbanes/Oxley Act (SOX) that did it. Basically to avoid another Enron-style disaster, they made it that revenue already realized was for product already delivered. Apple at the time chose to recognize the sale of an iPod Touch the instant you bought the iPod Touch. Giving you a new version meant increased functionality which meant that they shouldn't have recognized the entire sale of the product when it was sold and would have to restate earnings to that effect.
The iPhone wasn't covered because revenue for it was being recognized recurringly - every month, so an update to the OS would just count towards that current month's revenue.
Of course, seeing as no one really bothered (you could pirate iOS for the iPod Touch just fine), and seeing how Android updates crashed and burned, I'm guessing Apple redid the way they recognized iPod revenue.
Microsoft, BTW, doesn't do that for its software - it has always recognized revenue from sales of software over 3 years or so, so can keep delivering feature updates.
Oh, and generally, people recognize revenue the moment something is sold, not broken up over a period of months.
Trying to track down where in Africa minerals are mined will require massive spending on auditors and lawyers. Bribery and corruption is rife. A much more effective approach is to support refugees, wherever they may end up. Furthermore, population growth and AIDS are larger problems than the African civil wars. Rwanda's population is already larger that what is was before the genocide there.
Not really.
There are three minerals involved - tungsten, tantalum and tin. The electronics groups have gotten together to work on the first mineral, tantalum and have done it at the smelter scale. There are 45 smelters worldwide that process coltan into tantalum, and from there it's a lot easier.
It protects the people that you injure and hospitalize, in addition to the damage you do to other people's property.
I have never hurt, injured, or hospitalized anyone in my life, with an automobile at least. Tell me again why I have to buy into this racket?
Because you haven't YET hurt/injured/hospitalized someone. You see, there's a saying that goes "past performance does not a guarantee of future performance". Unless you can prove that you WILL NEVER hurt/injure/hospitalize/kill anyone in your vehicle or damage other property there's a chance. Oh, and this includes anyone who drives your vehicle - whether with permission or not (could be someone stealing your car, could be your kids, whatever).
Oh, and you do know sometimes if someone runs into you, you can still be partially or even fully liable? E.g., you're turning left at a traffic light, and it turns red (and cross traffic gets the green). You proceed to clear the intersection and someone runs the red and smashes into you. Depending on your location, precedent may have it that you're still liable for most of the damage. Even though you had right of way (you were clearing the intersection so cross traffic may go).
Then again, perhaps you have a few million dollars in the bank just in case...
Android is a perfect example of this - While the userspace Android stack is open source, the Apache license allows vendors to close the source and not release any modifications.
Pretty much all of them do, except for those working on Google's reference devices (the Nexus series).
Now I can understand closing up your "special sauce" modifications like custom UI skins and additional applications - but these companies close down their HALs and frequently change their HAL interfaces so they differ from the Android standards, making it difficult for those who want to run pure AOSP on a non-Nexus device to do so. There is no benefit to doing this - it only pisses people off if they are unhappy with your skin but are unable to change it.
I think that's the point. You see, if everyone ran the same plain vanilla Android, there would be very little to differentiate a Samsung Galaxy IV SuperDuperPhone from an LG/Sony/Motorola/HTC Android phone. And manufacturers hate that with a passion. So they start out with skins and such to make users prefer their devices over the competitions.
As for plain AOSP - they don't care - they'd prefer you don't and wouldn't mind keeping the bootloader locked. The only reason they're unlocking it is to attract the few extra people to their camp, hoping that the display of "openness" keeps them buying their phones and not the competition.
Android is Apache because otherwise the companies really wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole - ignoring GPLv3 issues, the cellphone marketplace is really quite competitive and a change that makes your phone "better" is in high demand. The other alternative is they just plop some version of Android there, release the code, and let the Android experience suck because they won't want to commit to the R&D that helps competitors. (GPLv3 is enough of a scare to companies that use of GPLv3 software internally is restricted, and use of GPLv3 code is outright banned).
That's the nature of the beast. Google is in competition with the iPhone (setting the overall look and feel of Android), but the Android manufacturers are in competition with each other and they want t make sure customers want to stay with them than switch. Having users switch to AOSP is not their desire, nor is having users remove the skins, custom ROMs, etc.
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Because Apple has an audience, that's why. Time actually was available for iOS - it's just that they had to do their own app, and in that app, they had to either use Apple's payment system, or direct customers to go to the website and buy the digital edition there so it can be delivered to their app. Now, if you're a customer, would you go weekly to Time's website and buy a new copy? Or get bugged to download the new issue and pay for it? No, you'd ask why can't the app do it automatically!
And Apple saw that people were doing things like this - some apps were monthly (a new app a month) so holding a huge backlog consumed a lot of home screen space. Others were doing in-app stuff and the user had to remember to check the app lest they forget they have 5 months worth of mags they haven't read yet.
So Newsstand was created to solve this - first, it's a folder of magazines so it keeps your app launcher clean. Second, it automatically downloads the latest version for you - if you've subscribed, all you do is pick up your iDevice, go to Newsstand, and see the latest covers.
Basically, Apple offered users convenience - an easy way to pay for periodicals and get them to their device without having to mess with different subscription systems, payment methods, apps, etc.
Time, being a holdout, was probably losing business to people who couldn't be bothered to do all that. A customer might look up for Time's publications, see they're not available, and think they're not there so they'll go buy a print version, and complain about "media companies not getting it".Then there are those who found the app, but couldn't be bothered to go to the website and buy a subscription there, having to answer all those questions - "why can't I just buy it through iTunes?".
In other words, Time was losing ground to everyone else. And convenience matters - I don't want to pull to download a new issue - why can't my iDevice pull the new issue for me and have it ready when I want to read it? Which is what Newsstand does.
It's the same reason why the Kindle took off where other e-ink readers failed (Sony had e-readers for years before the Kindle). The Kindle made it easy to buy a book - you didn't need a computer, you go to the reader's store, select Buy, and in minutes you're reading.
Periodicals are extremely competitive. It isn't unusual to hear of periodical advertising agencies offering customers cut-rate ad rates if they'd buy an entire year, thus exhausting the ad budgets of those companies for that year. Another periodical comes buy and offers ad space, only to find out they've bought all they were going to buy, too bad, so sad.
So Apple's providing a convenience to users in having magazines they want right there ready to read, with new issues automatically obtained for them without having to lift a finger, and a convenient method for them to buy subscriptions. Sometimes as a business it's better to hold your nose and realize that's your customers. Make it easy for them and they'd be more likely to pay you for your content. Make it inconvenient and you've shot yourself in the foot as people give up after a few months.
No, Nokia hasn't made much in the first world for years - they had manufacturing centers in much cheaper places. But they too had layoffs. Factory jobs suck - whether you're at Foxconn or in the US. It's all repetitive and boring and doesn't pay well because it's very low-skill (th eones who build up experience can make serious money, but it's rare).
No, the job losses in Europe and Canada - they're higher paying research and development jobs. Sure some of them will reappear in China and such (usually the more boring testing/QA/gruntwork), but the workforce knowledge doesn't move around that easily. And in fact, those workers are in demand - highly skilled, with specialist knowledge in telephony. You can bet Microsoft and Apple would be extending serious offers purely for the knowledgebase.
Have to admit though, it's pretty surprising that one phone on one carrier could shake up an industry. Nokia and RIM are basically the two companies left, the former had a significant non-smartphone business, the latter is basically treading water. But Symbian basically died (it's on life support), WinMo is dead (Windows Phone is not next-gen WinMo), PalmOS is dead.
OTOH, we see a new revival - Android barely existed 5 years ago, and iOS was hardly anything back then either (it didn't have apps, MMS, or even 3G). WinMo ODMs became top-line companies (e.g., HTC).
Still hard to believe just one phone did it. It only worked on one (crappy) carrier. And was offered in one market (the US). Perhaps that's why everyone else ignored it - the target market was tiny (Nokia was huge outside North America, so a phone only released in the US is a threat? RIM ditto - probably the same thinking as /. - it's all marketing and no substance, it'll die in a year as a flop. Microsoft, well WinMo has a feature list 10 times longer than it.)
I think the conspiracy theorists are going "they're spying on us!!!" when in reality, a lot of those bases are used just ot launch and recover UAVs.
What people don't realize is these UAVs have extremely long range (especially with in-flight refuelling) so unless they are needed at a moment's notice, stationing them inside the US is a good idea - all your parts are nearby, no supply chain issues, etc.
It's just like the B2 and F-117 stealth planes - they all were stationed inside the US, and went on long 24+ hour missions involving flight to the target location, doing the work, then flying back to the US.
If the plane has the endurance and it isn't completely necessary to be able to launch within minutes, stationing them stateside isn't a big deal. And even if you do need a moment's notice, as UAVs are remotely piloted, well, they just need to station it there with backup being a few hours away.
Uh, Amazon DID do that! It was discovered if you switched browsers that you could get a lower price that way, etc.
And technically, price discimination is the ideal for the seller - instead of sales measured at where supply meets demand (and the area of a square box created between that point and the origin is revenue), price discrimination allows them to take the larger area under the supply curve as revenue.
It's more obvious in the IP industry - where movies/music/books are sold at difference prices worldwide - and the ease of which they're transported across borders leads to all sorts of strange nonsensical laws.
And no, review and comparison sites will still be around - because they'd be telling you what others paid and if you're paying more.
Price discrimination works purely because of assymetrical flow of information (capitalism is extremely egalitarian if both parties have the same information. Hence why knowledge is power and money - having just a bit more information tilts the balance in favor of its possessor). Price comparison sites hence still have a very powerful role - if someone can prove they got something cheaper than what it's being offered to you, you'll either try to get the lower price, not buy the item, or shop at a competitor. If you didn't know, though, you'd probably be the sucker that paid more.
Anyone who watches the EEV Blog knows this (the host was laid off from his job at Altium last year), not-entirely-by-coincidence.
Korean made cars are a LOT better than they were 20-odd years ago. They too used to be junk crap that broke down more often than Fords (if you could get them started). They were, however, cheap. All it takes is to have an industry ridiculed so much it's the butt of jokes, and Korea decided they needed to build better cars because of it.
It happens surprisingly often - Japan (pre-war) used to be the butt of jokes on stuff. Post-war, they rebuilt and decided to get involved in industry and became the world leader in electronics and optics. Taiwan used to be the same as well - "Made in Taiwan" was common for toys and stuff in the 80s. These days they're a powerhouse of semiconductors and high tech.
China's definitely got the capability, if they got rid of their desire to just copy and imitate. Fake iPods, fake iPhones, etc. all take a lot of work to produce (they're usually original designs in similar packaging, and often their own software, so there are some very smart people there). That's all it'll take - avoid imitation. They have the skills and talent already.
The answer is "it depends". It's a common scenario, actually, and the court decisions are all over the place.
In general though, taking the database is definitely illegal, as is taking your contacts file with you when you leave. If you instead carry the information in your head when you leave, the company can't do anything about it. Basically the general guidance is if it involves taking anything (data or physical object (address book, say)), it's not allowed. But if you walk off with it (carrying nothing else) it's fair game since they can't scrub your mind.
It also applies to corporate secrets - there's an amazing amount stored in one's head, and other than a confidentiality agreement, not much else to protect it. If you leave, what you have in your head is fair game (other than confidentiality agreements).
A good salesperson can keep a number of their contacts in memory (it helps if they don't rely on contact lists and dial manually), and since they contact those clients a lot, they are probably the good customers as well. Just something to keep in mind.
Well, it also takes lawyers to say yes and hand over the reports.
Saying "no" is a lot cheaper because it involves the lawyer only. Saying "yes" means you need to get technicians involved as well and a bunch of other people, who probably get paid to do other work than look at logs all day. Plus, it's easier for a lawyer to say no to a lawsuit with 4000 John Does on it than to have to look up those 4000 people, retrieve their customer records, sanitize what isn't in the request, and then provide it. Saying no probably takes a lawyer a day to do. Doing the 4,000 lookups... a few days of several people including a lawyer to ensure that the request was fulfilled properly.
Weather != climate. In fact, global warming has been shown to make weather more extreme - more hurricanes (a nice big hurricane can cool the ocean by a couple of degrees - it is a big heat engine after all). Summers will be hotter, drier, winters will be colder, snowier, etc. In fact, the melting ice cap has an interesting observation that winter wind patterns could push south bringing more cold air down with it.
So summers get hotter and drier, which makes farming much more difficult. Sure the northern areas get more arable land, but their growing periods are far shorter because of lesser sunlight.
The only real predictions are colder winters, hotter summers, and more hurricants/tornadoes (which is the natural way the oceans cool off).
Pretty much patent holders only. It's really a formalized gentleman's agreement that you will not sue anyone in the group over any of your patents, and in return, they won't sue you.
The problems with it are numerous. First, you have to throw in your entire patent pool, so the big guys with lots of patents will probably not join (IBM, Apple, Microsoft, Samsung,, etc). Second, patent trolls won't join (they don't have any benefit because there's little they can be sued for).
The requirement for all patents is obvious - to prevent cherry-picking lame ones to be included in the group.
The biggest benefit comes to open-source companies like Red Hat who own patents for defense purposes, in which case it's really a put-up-or-shut-up type agreement.
Well, Apple made some rather significant investements in their supply chain - they've paid Sharp and others billions to improve LCD screens, paid millions to the factories in Japan that produced raw materials for the batteries affected by the earthquake, etc.
So it's not just buying up entire supplies (when you think about it, if a Mac sells a million units, that's a million screens - a rather considerable amount of product to produce. Not counting ones that fail Apple QC and end up on the secondary market as cheap monitors).
There are other companies able to do so as well - Samsung invested heavily in OLED display technology, hence why practically all their phones have it. Heck, perhaps Apple was willing to pay for significant investments in OLED screen technology so they can use it in the next iPhone, but Samsung rejected it. After all, Apple doesn't throw you a billion dollars without expecting something in return.
Probably because it's easier to manage? If they get a response to tas-contact@google.com, they know it only applies to the 8 associated with that address. Helps to pre-sort what domains are being talked about, after all. And if there's a discussion to be had between various parties, it's only 8 out of all gTLDs they could be talking about, rather than any one of them which could confuse them (especially since several will be disputed. Figuring out which of the 8 per email are under dispute is a lot easier...).
Same reason a one-person company owning a domain might have several contact addresses (e.g., sales@, support@, webmaster@, etc) - it just helps pre-sort email so the general gist of the email is understood prior to actually reading it.
You don't need to get a court order to get an app removed. Apple has a process to report infringement of apps, and they probably used it, just like Nokia used it to remove VLC and the FSF used it to remove Gnuchess.
And Apple generally does pull apps when there are disputes going on - like the VLC developers all fighting about VLC in the app store.
What's Apple to do? They get a complaint from PRC saying the app violates their patents, and technically that does violate the App Store agreement (since the app has IP encumberance and may not technically be available for sale).
Heck, I'm not so sure Google wouldn't do the same. The only difference might be that the sued developer might still continue sales separately, though if they were smart, they'd hold off until after the lawsuit was finished as well...
There's also a chance the developer pulled the app because of the lawsuit. When an app disappears, Apple could've pulled it, or the developer could've. Google has done it several times (usually because they can't code for iOS worth a damn and has had several serious bugs), and I'm sure many other developers do it as well. EA has pulled their old Tetris app and replaced it with a crappier version, for example.
Nowhere in the FA or blog that says Apple was the one who removed the app. It "was no longer there". The developer could've pulled it to prevent additional damages while the lawsuit is going on (at lawyer's advice).
There are two headphones I'd recommend.
For around $140 or less, the Grado SR80i's are pretty damn hard to beat. No isolation also (you can't really have good sound with closed headphones - the best ones with flattest response tend to be open). Spending anymore money on headphones is silly. It's strange, as Grado is "audiophile" but $140 makes it amongst the cheapest available. Hell, they're cheaper than the crap called Beats. The only downside is they can be hard to get (only sold at very high end audio stores - and probably the cheapest thing those stores sell).
Of course, for less money... Koss Porta Pros (not Sporta). Darned thing can be had for under $50 and for a "cheap" brand, surprisingly good. In fact, they've re-released them with slight modifications. Not sure if they're still as good, but I think you can find the old version new still. 80's looks, open design again, but for a set of headphones that are cheap, stunning.
Hence the move to 450mm wafers.
In semiconductor manufacturing, the cost of the wafer is basically the entire cost - around $1000 each. After processing, it's a bit more expensive. From this they cut it all up and package.
But two important factors are size of the final die, and the yield. The larger the die, the less per wafer you can make so they cost more. The yield has the same thing - the more bad chips per wafer, the more expensive it becomes because the good chips have to pay for the bad. And there's a relation between size and yield - the larger the chip, the greater the chance that it'll be bad as flaws in the silicon or manufacturing are amplified by the die area.
So a larger wafer means more chips per wafer, which gives you hopefully less cost per chip (the wafer doesn't cost that much more over the number you get).
Chips get cheaper for two reasons - enhanced yields (as processes get refined) and moving to smaller nodes (each chip consumes less die area and thus you can fit more per wafer).
For chips that are fixed-area, like say a full-frame dSLR sensor - it can mean cheaper cameras as yields get higher.
For larger die chips, like the largest FPGAs (which can easily cost $15,000+ each) it can bring down their cost. And memory is die-area-limited, so larger wafers mean they can be bigger as well.
Hell, Apple doesn't anymore, and they were one of the last to do so (even putting it on a thumbdrive - the pre-Lion OS X MacBook Airs had a restore thumbdrive).
The only thing Apple does now is internet restore - connect your Mac to an internet connection and it'll download and restore for you, kinda inconvenient.
Easy. It's happening right now on Comcast.
Use Netflix? It counts towards your 250GB limit. Use Comcast's Xfinity service? It doesn't. So you can end up paying more for Netflix once you exceed your 250GB limit, or you can use Comcast's service and get it all for "free". If that's not promoting Comcast's service overy say, Netflix/Amazon Prime/Vudu/ITunes/etc, I don't know what is.
Hell, why should Comcast route VoIP packets for you? They can jitter all packets to make all VoIP stutter annoyingly. Of course, they will happily sell you a phone service free from such irritants.
Or TV - you want Hulu? Sure, 250GB. BTW, we have a special deal if you take Comcast cable - you can use our Xfinity online streaming for free.
It's all about providers intentionally crippling the competition. Hell, you see it in Canada - where all the providers seem to rush headlong into UBB, forcing Netflix to reduce quality to save bandwidth. But of course, their TV over IP solutions are free from such limits. (And we have vertically integrated monopolies too - each of the big three own content produces, TV channels, TV stations, distirbution networks, last mile, and provide phone and internet service).
So they got caught once. It just means they'll be sneakier the next time around.
Actually, the Air's SSD isn't proprietary. It's called mSATA and it's used on netbooks as well, though the Air is the primary reason these days by volume sales. It's not as easy to get, but it's part of the SATA standard.
I wonder though if it's possible for those of us with sharper eyesight to use all those pixels in super-teeny-tiny mode just to have the resolution - more windows on screen, more code on screen, etc...
The othe rthing is well, most ads for mobile are NOT on webpages.
They're in apps - AdMob (Google) doesn't make money serving up mobile ads on webpages, but whenever an Android developer wants to make money, they sign up and stick the ad in their app.
That's where the money is. Problem is, most ads are really unrelated to the app, and for Android especially, requires taking on way more permissions (though most people ignore them).
Exactly.
Stuff that invasive species would've lived on decomposed or deteriorated before they made it too far from their shores (or sank - waterlogged wood from trees does that). It's only in relatively modern times would something that originated somewhere be cast off and arrive at a whole new continent a year or more later still intact...
Actually, both can be true. In China, there have been NUMEROUS cases where iPhones are re-imported back into China - either unlocked ones from US/Canada (Apple actually had to institute a policy about this). Plenty of imports from Hong Kong (including several busts of people trying to sneak 40+ iPhones and iPads back into China). Heck, you should've seen the return lines when the iPad launched and scalpers were stuck with product they couldn't sell marked up.
Several reasons for this - approval for the iPhone in China is very slow - and requires adding support for China's special wireless privacy setting (a modificaiton of WPA2) otherwise it isn't an "approved" product.
The iPhone only officially launched in China in 2011. But it's been available since the original, just not officially.
Windows phones may be outselling the iPhone thorugh official carrier channels (I believe China Mobile has a LOT of iPhone users, despite not selling iPhones), but the underground economy in iPhones is what's providing the sales.
Or when you think about it - prices haven't really changed all that much. Prices on the low end have dropped, but good stuff is still priced pretty much the same as it has over the years.
A good 20" CRT monitor would've cost $2000+ easy in the 90s (one that could do 16x12 and not be fuzzy/blurry/blooming but nice and crisp). Heck, a 17" monitor doing 1024x768 flatscreen would've been several hundred bucks.
Likewise, nice monitors are still several hundred bucks. It's just that we're used to seeing huge 20" LCD monitors go for $100 or less that makes us think they're a good deal. It's the same as a $500 laptop - the good ones still cost a lot of money (want a GPU and more than 1366x768? You'll be spending $1000 minimum).
All that's happened to technology is manufacturers have perfected the art of making something to a price. A laptop for $500? What bits and pieces can we chop for that? A monitor for $100? Sure! What can we sacrifice?
Ditto 1080p displays - because of the commodization of technology, the video circuits to drive a 1080p display is insanely cheap - when millions of TVs are made, it's easy to make a very cheap computer monitor by reusing the exact same parts.
Anyhow, hopefully the Apple rumors are true and high-res displays are coming down the pipeline.
It was the Sarbanes/Oxley Act (SOX) that did it. Basically to avoid another Enron-style disaster, they made it that revenue already realized was for product already delivered. Apple at the time chose to recognize the sale of an iPod Touch the instant you bought the iPod Touch. Giving you a new version meant increased functionality which meant that they shouldn't have recognized the entire sale of the product when it was sold and would have to restate earnings to that effect.
The iPhone wasn't covered because revenue for it was being recognized recurringly - every month, so an update to the OS would just count towards that current month's revenue.
Of course, seeing as no one really bothered (you could pirate iOS for the iPod Touch just fine), and seeing how Android updates crashed and burned, I'm guessing Apple redid the way they recognized iPod revenue.
Microsoft, BTW, doesn't do that for its software - it has always recognized revenue from sales of software over 3 years or so, so can keep delivering feature updates.
Oh, and generally, people recognize revenue the moment something is sold, not broken up over a period of months.
Not really.
There are three minerals involved - tungsten, tantalum and tin. The electronics groups have gotten together to work on the first mineral, tantalum and have done it at the smelter scale. There are 45 smelters worldwide that process coltan into tantalum, and from there it's a lot easier.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/materials/cracking-down-on-conflict-minerals
The other two are next challenges (Tin is used for displays and touchscreens, tungsten in motors. Hrm... old style lightbulbs - conflict lightbulbs?)
http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/materials/cracking-down-on-conflict-minerals
Because you haven't YET hurt/injured/hospitalized someone. You see, there's a saying that goes "past performance does not a guarantee of future performance". Unless you can prove that you WILL NEVER hurt/injure/hospitalize/kill anyone in your vehicle or damage other property there's a chance. Oh, and this includes anyone who drives your vehicle - whether with permission or not (could be someone stealing your car, could be your kids, whatever).
Oh, and you do know sometimes if someone runs into you, you can still be partially or even fully liable? E.g., you're turning left at a traffic light, and it turns red (and cross traffic gets the green). You proceed to clear the intersection and someone runs the red and smashes into you. Depending on your location, precedent may have it that you're still liable for most of the damage. Even though you had right of way (you were clearing the intersection so cross traffic may go).
Then again, perhaps you have a few million dollars in the bank just in case...
I think that's the point. You see, if everyone ran the same plain vanilla Android, there would be very little to differentiate a Samsung Galaxy IV SuperDuperPhone from an LG/Sony/Motorola/HTC Android phone. And manufacturers hate that with a passion. So they start out with skins and such to make users prefer their devices over the competitions.
As for plain AOSP - they don't care - they'd prefer you don't and wouldn't mind keeping the bootloader locked. The only reason they're unlocking it is to attract the few extra people to their camp, hoping that the display of "openness" keeps them buying their phones and not the competition.
Android is Apache because otherwise the companies really wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole - ignoring GPLv3 issues, the cellphone marketplace is really quite competitive and a change that makes your phone "better" is in high demand. The other alternative is they just plop some version of Android there, release the code, and let the Android experience suck because they won't want to commit to the R&D that helps competitors. (GPLv3 is enough of a scare to companies that use of GPLv3 software internally is restricted, and use of GPLv3 code is outright banned).
That's the nature of the beast. Google is in competition with the iPhone (setting the overall look and feel of Android), but the Android manufacturers are in competition with each other and they want t make sure customers want to stay with them than switch. Having users switch to AOSP is not their desire, nor is having users remove the skins, custom ROMs, etc.