We need the unsophisticated users to buy the Android phones, or there won't be any. The economy of scale has to be there. If Android phones alienate the average user, then they'll end up like the N900: kick ass, but expensive and a relative hassle to get.
There will always be Android phones.
However, the problem is if the perception of the Marketplace is that it's full of malware ready to steal your phone's data and cost you a fortune in long-distance and premium phone number calls, then people may shy away from downloading any app from it. (or alternative app stores for that matter, since you can't trust that they aren't sending you malware either).
Which means to most users, Android is the phone and what it comes with - the Marketplace will simply be a "never touch" zone. Which means Android devs have a harder time.
Heck, carriers may see this and demand that Amazon be the primary marketplace allowed on the phone as a safety measure. And if that's the case, Android devs may have to submit to Amazon's even more restrictive terms.
Note : Root is not the same as jailbreak, root is just enable the "su" binary, and can be done with standard SDK on phones with unlocked bootloaders (and is usually easy to flash a new, unlocked bootloader / kernel on a phone - often with the phone's own flash tools)
Jailbreaking is also done to enable "su" on the iPhone. It's caleld jailbreaking because apps run sandboxed, and if you want better access, you need to break out of the jail. (Android does this too, but it also isolates apps from each other as each run under a different user account).
It's just on iPhone, besides breaking out and gaining root access, you need to also make changes to the OS so it can accept unsigned binaries and sideloading.
I'd say they're the same, and the differences really are OS-specific. You are, after all, rooting an iPhone, just doing a few extra steps in order to make it more useful in general.
I suppose we call it rooting instead of jailbreaking on Android purely to emphasize that Android's more open. "Jailbreaking" the term refers to breaking security on closed devices, when it really just means breaking out of some sandbox like BSD's jail().
jailbreakme.com ran 2 different exploits - the first was a PDF one to run arbitrary code, that arbitrary code then exploied a hole in the sandbox to get root, then you do the OS mods to keep root and install Cydia.
Know, if there was a way to copy the needed software to create an "officially" unlocked iPhone, using this phones software, from carrier locked ones life would really be good. Better yet, let this be a prelude for ATT to being able to unlock subsidized iPhones.
It's interesting actually.
Every iPhone4 is manufactured the same (I'm talking GSM ones, not counting the Verizon/CDMA ones). They're loaded with software and shipped out to Apple. Every serial number issued is recorded.
What happens when you buy an iPhone4 is this. For carrier sold phones, Apple records the serial numbers of every phone they ship out, and in their database it's marked as "Carrier locked". For phones sold at the Apple store, if you pay for a contract-free one, it's marked in the database as "unlocked", else if you buy it carrier locked/subsidized, it's marked as "carrier locked" as well. The baseband at this time only has the iMEI and nothing else.
Now, the next step is important, and it doesn't matter if it's done by the carrier in store or by you. The phone is plugged into the PC and it talks with iTunes. The phone queries the baseband and asks it what the carrier ID of the SIM that's inside is. It passes this information to iTunes along with its serial number, which contacts Apple and Apple looks into the database to see what phone it is.
If it's an unlocked phone, Apple ignores the carrier ID, and passes back a baseband configuration blob that basically keeps it unlocked. If it's a locked phone, it takes that carrier ID and produces a baseband configuration that locks the baseband to that carrier ID.
Note that the only time the phone knows it's locked is during the initial "Connect to iTunes" phase, which is why you must have a SIM inside for it (iTunes complains if there's no SIM). Subsequent times (during a restore, say), having a SIM inside it doesn't matter.
This also means that the carrier locking only happens during this period as well. You can buy a phone from AT&T, stick in say a Rogers SIM card, connect it to iTunes, and you'll have a phone locked to Rogers instead of AT&T.
These blobs are probably signed by Apple to ensure that replay attacks aren't possible, and are keyed to IMEI.
This may mean that right now, it's not possible to re-configure the baseband with a new blob. I expect iOS 5 to allow this capability though with a new baseband firmware. The use of iCloud would mean a user would purchase the unlock option, then restore their phone - iCloud backs up the data, the phone erases user data and restores itself to default, then the user set up begins while it fetches a new configuration blob. iCloud then restores the phone.
LOIC just floods a server, it's not a terribly useful tool for anything other than DDoS. For Anonymous, that's good enough.
LulzSec though wants to go after blood - userlists, corporate data, etc. You need a fancier tool than LOIC to do that, and some skill.
Anonymous would just make EVE harder to play by increasing lag of the entire game. LulzSec would really just mess things up by zeroing everyone's balance or giving tons of money or screwing with everyone's stats.
Well, Jobs has screwed Woz in the past, but Woz has pretty much forgiven him and let things be since there's nothing he can do, and he was pretty well compensated anyhow.
E.g., when Jobs was working at Atari, he needed to reduce the chip count for a bonus. Jobs gave the task to Woz and paid him $100 for his efforts, not knowing that Jobs took his design, submitted it and got a $500 bonus.
Honestly, Jobs is just a very shrewd businessman. Yes he screws people over. Yes he's an a**hole. No it doesn't excuse what he does, but one has to admit through his hands he's managed to produce some very nice products.
He's also a man of contrasts - given his rather ascetic lifestyle and hippie past, yet he's the leader of a very profitable company.
One might make the distinction between information viewable to "Facebook strangers", i.e. the public part of Facebook, and information shared with your friends. The problem with that argument is that Facebook in the past has on its own accord changed the distinction between the public and private parts of Facebook. More and more data has become publicly viewable, leading me to the conclusion that Facebook wants that information public. But they also want to restrict accessibility. That's a contradiction, it seems.
Not really.
Facebook wants information on everybody. The only way to get information on everybody is to have everybody put up that information. But some people feel their information shouldn't go to "everybody", so Facebook puts up paper walls to give people the illusion of privacy, so they would feel more comfortable putting their stuff up.
And yes, privacy settings are an illusion - once it's posted, it's really available for the whole world to see thank to re-tweets, re-posts, and all sorts of other things. This has been the case since people went online with ancient 120 baud modems.
Facebook's about-face with privacy settings really just makes it more clear that really, whatever you post is available to everyone eventually. The only way to ensure your privacy is to not post it up in the first place.
Umm... actually some flight sims at one time DID qualify as flight hours for pilots...
Still do actually. The FAA and many others allow use of approved flight training devices to replace some of the hours for flight training.
Of these, X-Plane is about the only commercially available flight sim software that wasn't specifically made for training that's been approved for use with training. Earlier it required a special build of it, but I think the later ones are the same now - you need a special USB unlock key that puts it into "approved' mode though.
Mobile phones can be blocked when stolen but that doesn't stop people pilfering them, not least because they can be unblocked by someone with the know-how. That suggests that many thieves are tech savvy than you suspect, at least to the point where they know they have to unblock the device before selling it.
Mobile phones are trivial to unblock.
First, the carrier can disable the SIM. Big whoop, you get a new SIM and stick it in.
Second, the carrier can disable the phone by blocking the IMEI. But these blocking tables are done per-carrier. There are many other carriers out there, and even MVNOs can often work around the blocks. Sure you'll need to unlock the phone, but that's a pretty trivial operation as well. Hell, sell it to a tourist who'll take it back to their country.
And most thieves just sell it for a couple of bucks - the purchaser is the one to go through such machinations. It can cost $100 or $200 to go through all the necessary motions, but if you just picked up a $600 phone for $10, you're not complaining.
Sure the thief can go through the machinations himself to sell it for more money, but it often takes too long and thieves want to transform their wares into cash ASAP. it's the end customer who does the hard work.
Hell, Apple can't even block the phones it sells - it can mark the serial number as stolen, in which case there will no longer be any support at all, but you do need a police report in order to claim it back.
Well, it's interesting to note that here in Canada, we have the exact opposite - the big telecommunications companies pretty much have free reign except for some small legal matters.
E.g., the FCC mandates that consumers must have choice in set top boxes, so CableCARD was created. Sure it's iffy, but at least you guys get to have "premium" PVRs like TiVo, Moxi, Windows Media Center, etc fully working with digital cable. Here we have to put up with cableco provided boxes that only work with that cableco. They won't activate any equipment you didn't buy from them even if it's identical.
Point 2 - UBB. The CRTC rule that jacked up DSL rates was changed from (cost+%) to (retail price-%). So if the incumbent sold DSL for $20/month and it cost them $10 to provide, instead of the ISP paying say, $12/month and providing service with the remaining $8 (the way it was), the rules changed so the ISP must pay say $18 (10% off retail) for the line. That's why TekSavvy had to jack up prices.
Hell, the only provider that seemed to have done a decent thing was Shaw by announcing new limits and plans that even include an unlimited service. Probably because they were bleeding customers and feared the government might end up stepping in with regulation. Bell and Rogers though... bleh.
Free market, indeed. Sometimes I wish our CRTC had balls like the FCC.
If I remember correctly, the Humble Indie Bundles are PC-only, but not every gamer is a PC gamer, and not all game concepts work well on PCs. How do you recommend that such "smaller developers who you feel are creative enough" get their products past the middlemen and in front of the audience
Well, there are two types of gamers left - console and phone. For the console, the only legit development channel for non-established devs is the Xbox Live Indie Arcade, which is $99/year and subject to community approval. I believe Braid started out that way, and there have been a few notable gems (amidst a sea of crap, though).
For the phone world, there's always iOS, which also has its hits (Angry Birds). People bitch about the approval process and the like, rightfully, but it's also the most console like experience (except Apple's terms are far more lenient and hardware much cheaper than real console development). And yes, complain about app bans and such, not that it's never happened in the console world either (Hot Coffee, anyone? Or now that Nintendo's also had to withdraw a game prior to release...). Then there's always Android as well which has the advantage of no approval process.
For a developer not willing to spend much money at all, you have PC, Mac and Android. For $99/year each, you can also add Xbox360 and iOS to the mix (though I'd probably suggest iOS over Xbox360 - there are far more channels you can exploit to get your game front and center). I'm not counting hardware costs, assuming people have a computer and a phone already, and probably a console.
Then I have a hard time understanding what sort of app WOULD fall afoul of the rule. How else would you acquire this info other than by its publication in a newspaper or by someone seeing it themselves?
I think that's the entire point.
Apple and Google are under tremendous pressure to ban these apps. After all, RIM did within a month of asking. Now they're under scrutiny for various privacy, tracking and other issues.
All Apple has to do now is say "Look, we did ban those DUI checkpoint apps - see we changed our Terms and Conditions."
All the existing apps using public information, well, they're aggregating public data, and the fact that that data happens to be available in app form is just a consequence - public data presented in a convenient format. If the senators want those apps removed, well all they have to do is prevent the information from getting out. Oh wait, doing so makes checkpoints illegal.
Problem solved.
Apple and Google have dragged their feet over this issue for over half a year. I suspect the lawyers have finally figured out the loophole and are exploiting it. Google will probably use similar wording on their market.
Not only do they not support 98, or 2000, or XP, they also don't support any OS X older than 10.5 (example: Safari and iTunes).
It is simply part of Apple culture not to supply software to older OSes. It forces the user to upgrade (i.e. spend money), and I'm not surprised Apple applies the same tactic to PCs that has worked so well for Macs.
Actually, considering the current version of OS X is 10.6 (Snow Leopard),, it means they should've dropped 10.5 support a long while ago - 2009 or so when 10.6 was released. 10.5 came out in 2007.
Historically, Apple supports the current and last versions of their OS, which is why Safari and iTunes are running on 10.5.
If you've got an Intel Mac, you're good - all Intel Macs are supported by 10.6. If you've got a PowerPC G4 Mac you can run 10.5 and it'll be supported until the end of the year, which would be a stunningly long life for some hardware (over 10 years for the PowerBook G4). But when Lion comes out, all support for the PowerPC line will be dropped as only Lion and Snow Leopard are under official support.
Hell, Firefox stopped supporting 10.4 as of Firefox 4. The only salvation being it's open-source soyou can get TenFourFox which is Firefox 4 built for 10.4.
Anyhow, iTunes stopped supporting Windows 2000 ages ago - I think around iTunes 8 or so, but since Microsoft discontinued support, they dropped the old Windows 2000 link as well.
(Though, the only reason Apple supports 2 versions is lag - the number of people running older OSes drops significantly - when 10.5 came out, the proportion of people running 10.3 was pretty small (most ran 10.4), and likewise, when 10.6 came out, 10.4 were a small minority. Not too small at 10.7 though as it means there will no longer be an OS for PowerPC Macs, which are still a good chunk of users.
The situation is a much worse for iOS users since Apple really only supports the last two versions - iPhone 3Gs and iPhone 4, while iPhone/iPhone 3G users are left out in the dust (especially since some are still in contract).
Another way the PC (and I believe the Mac) is not "just another device" was spelled out clearly in the new iTunes T&C I read yesterday: Purchases from the iBookstore are NOT readable on "Computers", only "Devices". Your computer can only store your purchases in order to sync the down to your iOS device.
Ignore history at your peril. The iTunes T&Cs have said the same thing about iPod Games (before iOS, the iPod back then (the Classic as it's called now) could run games) only working on an iPod and they will not run on your PC. The same thing was said when the App Store came out - apps may be downloaded via iTunes to your PC, but they require an iOS device to run them.
Ditto books from the iBookstore. At least until iTunes offers a built in book reader, which is probably coming soon. But right now, it's clearly indicating that books cannot be read on a PC yet.
Yes, I said coming soon - iTunes has the necessary DRM architecture and HTML rendering blocks to read ePub. Whether or not they want to bloat iTunes anymore or release it as a separate app is another question altogether.
I want 5GB of data, to use however I see fit. They are fucking transport, that is it. I want to buy a dumb pipe.
They sell "dumb pipe" plans, usually under the name of "VPN laptop" plans with real IPs.
The smart carriers already know that the plans offer different services and differentiate them. E.g., a smartphone plan will usually have you NAT'ed and maybe even firewalled so all you can access is POP/IMAP/HTTP/HTTPS (Verizon does this - try accessing IRC - in many cases it's blocked). Heck, they can even transparent proxy to reduce your consumption and make pages load faster (downscale images and videos, for example).
The laptop plans are similar, but they usually just are a simple NAT based system with little firewalling, and no proxying. The best plans are the VPN ones where they give you real IPs and real connectivity with no NAT and no firewall (because they're VPN plans and VPNs do all sorts of wierd things).
Of course, you're also paying a LOT more money for them.
And nevermind that unless you use your phone as a proxy server (e.g., the SSH tether options), it's easy to tell when you engaged the tether mode.
Hell, if I was Verizon, I'd tell people to go ahead and do it - there's a lot more valuable data to gather because of the transparent proxy. Firewall off anything not POP/IMAP/HTTP/HTTPS and let people have their cake. Those who want better data service can pay more for it. Those who want cheap ass tethering can easily pay for it by being "the product".
It baffles me to too... why so many American and European companies are so willing to quicken their demise for a few bucks today.
Blame the short-term shareholder. The guy who wants results today, screw tomorrow. $1 today is worth much more than $2 tomorrow. Basically get-rich-quick investors who want to hold onto an investment just to make a buck and sell it after they have.
Take a look at share prices around earning report time - the usually start rising just after the quarter ends then what happens after that is up to the earnings report. Even if they meet their expected earnings, if they fail to meet analyst's expected earnings (even if they're completely ludicrous), the share price can drop 5% or more easily.
Execs (CxOs, board members) get major compensation via stock as well, so it encourages them to pump up the stock price and sell off shares when they can. "The Future" is a problem for the CEO's successor, and if things ar elooking bleak, expect the CEO to suddenly resign and dump their stock.
Maybe if instead of instant compensation execs had to hold all their stock-based (and option-based) compensation beyond their term. It's their bonus anyways, and maybe if they had to hold it for 5 years after they leave, they would consider the longer-term survival and health since their bonus pay only comes years later. Also helps ensure they pick a good leadership.
A lot of the more complex devices (WiFi, Bluetooth, programmable NICs, etc) often run another OS to manage them. There's often no license to distribute the necessary source, nor is there any way to rebuild it without requiring the proprietary development environment.
It's usually some sort of RTOS. So no, firmware isn't just a simple program that starts at main() and handles requests from the host - it can often be handling real-time processing and many other tasks simultaneously. (And yes, these RTOS and such can run in a tiny bit of onboard RAM and flash)
Heck, the latest videocards often run something on the GPU itself for management.
Exactly. But it seems people have got it in their little heads that store-and-forward mechanisms (basically anything non-IM) is immediate. Probably started around the time people got the idea that texting and twitter were another form of IM. Or facebook messaging.
No, they aren't, and I don't respond immediately. Getting angry at me because you emailed/twittered/IM'd/texted me about an emergency isn't likely to make me respond any faster. If you really need me this instant, there's a phone, or walk over to me. Maybe IM, if I'm actively responding to it, if not, I may not see or attend to it.
Chances are, I may see your request and ignore it simply because it's not relevant at this point in time nor does it seem urgent to me (your lack of planning does not consitute an emergency on my part) and I'll get back to it later. Especially since I may be busy with other things - if it's that important there are many other ways to reach me and express its importance. Taking the time to pick up the phone is one, as is trying to actually physically find me.
If I'm stll not reachable, well, I'm probably doing something and enjoying my unreachability. There are very few true emergencies in life where an immediate response is required, and if it's one of those, there are many ways to reach me still. E.g., if I'm driving, call the police who can stop me and inform me of the situation. Even some emergencies that you're helpless to fix (e.g., overseas relative died) can certainly wait until I'm reachable again - there's nothing I can do and getting to the airport a couple of hours earlier isn't going to help.
That seems to be a new feature, thanks. Last time I looked at this the only way to do it was to create a new account. This after all the other crap to hookup my account for Find My iPhone.
I removed my card info from my iTunes account when the latest rounds of "iTunes Hacked!" news came out. Mostly as a precaution, since I really just use iTunes gift cards for purchaess. (Yes, I use gift cards - there seems to be a $5 off $25 or $10 off $50 gift card sale pretty damn often, so why pay full price?)
The reason to top off is because sometimes it clicks off for no apparent reason; you might only have filled half way up so far.
In which case you leave it off for a few seconds to let it settle and try again. And yes, you should know roughly how much gas you need. The capacity of the gas tank is in the manual for a reason and assuming it's roughly linear, ought to be able to figure out how much gas you need from both the gauge and the distance travelled.
The skill is particularly important these days as it's oftne pay-before-you-pump and if you wish to pay by cash, you need to guesstimate how much money you need to prepay. And some stations don't give change back if the change is under some limit ($2/5/10 - yes, $10. Over 3 gallons worth!)
Anyhow, another reason to not top off is because you need space at the top for the expansion and contraction of the gas. Leave too little and on a hot day liquid gas can back up into the gas vapor recovery system and destroy it.
Quite likely actually. It seems these reports surface every few months.
Heck, last year we'vehadmanyreports of hacked accounts being used to buy in-app purchases or raise rankings of apps.
So, the options are either a very lowlevel iTunes hack that only seems to steal a few hundred accounts at a time (iTunes has over 250M accounts according to today's keynote), a very big breach of iTunes that someone only seems to be using a few hundred accounts at a time, or, a bunch of people got phished or used the same password.
In fact, I've seen a number of Apple phishing emails over the past few months - usually advertising some Photoshop sale or something. They look pretty real too, but they're phishes (I get them on my non-iTunes accounts).
The general goal is to use in-app purchases of some $99 things to get easy money, and the easiest way is to phish some emails (like the fake Apple ones - honestly, Apple only sends me emails about their products, not about Photoshop... and never about SALES of said product).
Most likely, either a reused password, or a phish. Besides the Photoshop bundle offer, I saw another fake Apple phishing email, but I can't remember for what product. I think it was for an Adobe product though.
I swore I read somewhere that Halo 3 was the last one, and that's why they went the prequel route after that.
Halo 3 ended the Master Chief saga. That's it, the end, case closed. That's what Bungie has always said - it's the end of the 'Chief.
FTA:
Halo 4 is "the dawn of a new trilogy for Xbox 360," Microsoft's Don Mattrick said of the new title
It's a new story arc. No more Master Chief, other than odd cameo you'll find.
Halo Reach wasn't really a prequel either, it doesn't goes into the whole backstory of the 'Chief, but portrays a different part of the early years of the Human-Covenant war.
And there have been 3 non-'Chief games so far - Halo 3 ODST, Halo Wars, and Halo Reach, each delving inside a different part of the Halo Universe.
The only thing I can guess would be a post-'Chief world, or maybe the Human-Covenant-Flood war after Halo 3 (remember, the Humans and the Convenant are still at war - though the Elites (one race amongst the Convenant) have shifted sides with the Humans).
The real issue is why no one is partnering with the FAA to get low EMI laptops going. I could see this as a feature in business class laptops. I imagine if its overly shielded and can be controlled by onboard wireless commands to disable its wireless/bluetooth, etc it'll work just fine. Some will balk at how big brothery this would be, but others might not care because they just want to get some work done during that long "we're starting to descend soon" call the pilot makes which can take up to an hour.
Or we can start slowly by approving new shielded Kindles and Nooks.
Because for every "usable everywhere" laptop passenger, there will be 100 passengers without, and who'll scream and shout about the one guy who cna use his laptop. And really, the flight attendant would hav eto know what laptops are and are not EMI shielded, when they really have more important things to do and know.
Also, certification takes time. Months. Laptops change almost weekly it seems - by the time a laptop gets through certification you'll porbably end up with something that's decidedly obsolete. And never mind stuff like upgrading RAM or hard drives - they can change the EM pattern a bit as well.
Plus, it's expensive - are people willing ot pay for it? Probalby not. And it has to be re-done if something fails.
Same goes for ereaders and the like - they're $140. A certified one will probably easily add 50% or more to the price, and even then they'll be replaced with a new one by the time it goes through certification.
That's why. Not enough people care about the 30 minutes per flight lost to takeoff/landing restrictions to really be willing to pay the premium. They'd just read a newspaper, a deadtree book, or something else. Or just take a nap.
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There will always be Android phones.
However, the problem is if the perception of the Marketplace is that it's full of malware ready to steal your phone's data and cost you a fortune in long-distance and premium phone number calls, then people may shy away from downloading any app from it. (or alternative app stores for that matter, since you can't trust that they aren't sending you malware either).
Which means to most users, Android is the phone and what it comes with - the Marketplace will simply be a "never touch" zone. Which means Android devs have a harder time.
Heck, carriers may see this and demand that Amazon be the primary marketplace allowed on the phone as a safety measure. And if that's the case, Android devs may have to submit to Amazon's even more restrictive terms.
Jailbreaking is also done to enable "su" on the iPhone. It's caleld jailbreaking because apps run sandboxed, and if you want better access, you need to break out of the jail. (Android does this too, but it also isolates apps from each other as each run under a different user account).
It's just on iPhone, besides breaking out and gaining root access, you need to also make changes to the OS so it can accept unsigned binaries and sideloading.
I'd say they're the same, and the differences really are OS-specific. You are, after all, rooting an iPhone, just doing a few extra steps in order to make it more useful in general.
I suppose we call it rooting instead of jailbreaking on Android purely to emphasize that Android's more open. "Jailbreaking" the term refers to breaking security on closed devices, when it really just means breaking out of some sandbox like BSD's jail().
jailbreakme.com ran 2 different exploits - the first was a PDF one to run arbitrary code, that arbitrary code then exploied a hole in the sandbox to get root, then you do the OS mods to keep root and install Cydia.
It's interesting actually.
Every iPhone4 is manufactured the same (I'm talking GSM ones, not counting the Verizon/CDMA ones). They're loaded with software and shipped out to Apple. Every serial number issued is recorded.
What happens when you buy an iPhone4 is this. For carrier sold phones, Apple records the serial numbers of every phone they ship out, and in their database it's marked as "Carrier locked". For phones sold at the Apple store, if you pay for a contract-free one, it's marked in the database as "unlocked", else if you buy it carrier locked/subsidized, it's marked as "carrier locked" as well. The baseband at this time only has the iMEI and nothing else.
Now, the next step is important, and it doesn't matter if it's done by the carrier in store or by you. The phone is plugged into the PC and it talks with iTunes. The phone queries the baseband and asks it what the carrier ID of the SIM that's inside is. It passes this information to iTunes along with its serial number, which contacts Apple and Apple looks into the database to see what phone it is.
If it's an unlocked phone, Apple ignores the carrier ID, and passes back a baseband configuration blob that basically keeps it unlocked. If it's a locked phone, it takes that carrier ID and produces a baseband configuration that locks the baseband to that carrier ID.
Note that the only time the phone knows it's locked is during the initial "Connect to iTunes" phase, which is why you must have a SIM inside for it (iTunes complains if there's no SIM). Subsequent times (during a restore, say), having a SIM inside it doesn't matter.
This also means that the carrier locking only happens during this period as well. You can buy a phone from AT&T, stick in say a Rogers SIM card, connect it to iTunes, and you'll have a phone locked to Rogers instead of AT&T.
These blobs are probably signed by Apple to ensure that replay attacks aren't possible, and are keyed to IMEI.
This may mean that right now, it's not possible to re-configure the baseband with a new blob. I expect iOS 5 to allow this capability though with a new baseband firmware. The use of iCloud would mean a user would purchase the unlock option, then restore their phone - iCloud backs up the data, the phone erases user data and restores itself to default, then the user set up begins while it fetches a new configuration blob. iCloud then restores the phone.
LOIC just floods a server, it's not a terribly useful tool for anything other than DDoS. For Anonymous, that's good enough.
LulzSec though wants to go after blood - userlists, corporate data, etc. You need a fancier tool than LOIC to do that, and some skill.
Anonymous would just make EVE harder to play by increasing lag of the entire game. LulzSec would really just mess things up by zeroing everyone's balance or giving tons of money or screwing with everyone's stats.
Well, Jobs has screwed Woz in the past, but Woz has pretty much forgiven him and let things be since there's nothing he can do, and he was pretty well compensated anyhow.
E.g., when Jobs was working at Atari, he needed to reduce the chip count for a bonus. Jobs gave the task to Woz and paid him $100 for his efforts, not knowing that Jobs took his design, submitted it and got a $500 bonus.
Honestly, Jobs is just a very shrewd businessman. Yes he screws people over. Yes he's an a**hole. No it doesn't excuse what he does, but one has to admit through his hands he's managed to produce some very nice products.
He's also a man of contrasts - given his rather ascetic lifestyle and hippie past, yet he's the leader of a very profitable company.
Not really.
Facebook wants information on everybody. The only way to get information on everybody is to have everybody put up that information. But some people feel their information shouldn't go to "everybody", so Facebook puts up paper walls to give people the illusion of privacy, so they would feel more comfortable putting their stuff up.
And yes, privacy settings are an illusion - once it's posted, it's really available for the whole world to see thank to re-tweets, re-posts, and all sorts of other things. This has been the case since people went online with ancient 120 baud modems.
Facebook's about-face with privacy settings really just makes it more clear that really, whatever you post is available to everyone eventually. The only way to ensure your privacy is to not post it up in the first place.
Still do actually. The FAA and many others allow use of approved flight training devices to replace some of the hours for flight training.
Of these, X-Plane is about the only commercially available flight sim software that wasn't specifically made for training that's been approved for use with training. Earlier it required a special build of it, but I think the later ones are the same now - you need a special USB unlock key that puts it into "approved' mode though.
Mobile phones are trivial to unblock.
First, the carrier can disable the SIM. Big whoop, you get a new SIM and stick it in.
Second, the carrier can disable the phone by blocking the IMEI. But these blocking tables are done per-carrier. There are many other carriers out there, and even MVNOs can often work around the blocks. Sure you'll need to unlock the phone, but that's a pretty trivial operation as well. Hell, sell it to a tourist who'll take it back to their country.
And most thieves just sell it for a couple of bucks - the purchaser is the one to go through such machinations. It can cost $100 or $200 to go through all the necessary motions, but if you just picked up a $600 phone for $10, you're not complaining.
Sure the thief can go through the machinations himself to sell it for more money, but it often takes too long and thieves want to transform their wares into cash ASAP. it's the end customer who does the hard work.
Hell, Apple can't even block the phones it sells - it can mark the serial number as stolen, in which case there will no longer be any support at all, but you do need a police report in order to claim it back.
Apparently the new Nook touch has a hidden web browser - enter a URL into the search bar and it'll load up the page.
Of course, surfing the web is painful on e-ink...
Well, it's interesting to note that here in Canada, we have the exact opposite - the big telecommunications companies pretty much have free reign except for some small legal matters.
E.g., the FCC mandates that consumers must have choice in set top boxes, so CableCARD was created. Sure it's iffy, but at least you guys get to have "premium" PVRs like TiVo, Moxi, Windows Media Center, etc fully working with digital cable. Here we have to put up with cableco provided boxes that only work with that cableco. They won't activate any equipment you didn't buy from them even if it's identical.
Point 2 - UBB. The CRTC rule that jacked up DSL rates was changed from (cost+%) to (retail price-%). So if the incumbent sold DSL for $20/month and it cost them $10 to provide, instead of the ISP paying say, $12/month and providing service with the remaining $8 (the way it was), the rules changed so the ISP must pay say $18 (10% off retail) for the line. That's why TekSavvy had to jack up prices.
Hell, the only provider that seemed to have done a decent thing was Shaw by announcing new limits and plans that even include an unlimited service. Probably because they were bleeding customers and feared the government might end up stepping in with regulation. Bell and Rogers though... bleh.
Free market, indeed. Sometimes I wish our CRTC had balls like the FCC.
Well, there are two types of gamers left - console and phone. For the console, the only legit development channel for non-established devs is the Xbox Live Indie Arcade, which is $99/year and subject to community approval. I believe Braid started out that way, and there have been a few notable gems (amidst a sea of crap, though).
For the phone world, there's always iOS, which also has its hits (Angry Birds). People bitch about the approval process and the like, rightfully, but it's also the most console like experience (except Apple's terms are far more lenient and hardware much cheaper than real console development). And yes, complain about app bans and such, not that it's never happened in the console world either (Hot Coffee, anyone? Or now that Nintendo's also had to withdraw a game prior to release...). Then there's always Android as well which has the advantage of no approval process.
For a developer not willing to spend much money at all, you have PC, Mac and Android. For $99/year each, you can also add Xbox360 and iOS to the mix (though I'd probably suggest iOS over Xbox360 - there are far more channels you can exploit to get your game front and center). I'm not counting hardware costs, assuming people have a computer and a phone already, and probably a console.
Actually, considering the current version of OS X is 10.6 (Snow Leopard),, it means they should've dropped 10.5 support a long while ago - 2009 or so when 10.6 was released. 10.5 came out in 2007.
Historically, Apple supports the current and last versions of their OS, which is why Safari and iTunes are running on 10.5.
If you've got an Intel Mac, you're good - all Intel Macs are supported by 10.6. If you've got a PowerPC G4 Mac you can run 10.5 and it'll be supported until the end of the year, which would be a stunningly long life for some hardware (over 10 years for the PowerBook G4). But when Lion comes out, all support for the PowerPC line will be dropped as only Lion and Snow Leopard are under official support.
Hell, Firefox stopped supporting 10.4 as of Firefox 4. The only salvation being it's open-source soyou can get TenFourFox which is Firefox 4 built for 10.4.
Anyhow, iTunes stopped supporting Windows 2000 ages ago - I think around iTunes 8 or so, but since Microsoft discontinued support, they dropped the old Windows 2000 link as well.
(Though, the only reason Apple supports 2 versions is lag - the number of people running older OSes drops significantly - when 10.5 came out, the proportion of people running 10.3 was pretty small (most ran 10.4), and likewise, when 10.6 came out, 10.4 were a small minority. Not too small at 10.7 though as it means there will no longer be an OS for PowerPC Macs, which are still a good chunk of users.
The situation is a much worse for iOS users since Apple really only supports the last two versions - iPhone 3Gs and iPhone 4, while iPhone/iPhone 3G users are left out in the dust (especially since some are still in contract).
That might be true for why it's officially called C-Sharp, but the meaning of the # comes from C++.
It's a better C++, so they wanted another ++ on it, so they put ++ below the ++ on C++. So it looked a little like:
which hey, they could shrink to C# (see? it now looks like ++ on top of ++). Stylize it a bit and it looks like a #.
Ignore history at your peril. The iTunes T&Cs have said the same thing about iPod Games (before iOS, the iPod back then (the Classic as it's called now) could run games) only working on an iPod and they will not run on your PC. The same thing was said when the App Store came out - apps may be downloaded via iTunes to your PC, but they require an iOS device to run them.
Ditto books from the iBookstore. At least until iTunes offers a built in book reader, which is probably coming soon. But right now, it's clearly indicating that books cannot be read on a PC yet.
Yes, I said coming soon - iTunes has the necessary DRM architecture and HTML rendering blocks to read ePub. Whether or not they want to bloat iTunes anymore or release it as a separate app is another question altogether.
Blame the short-term shareholder. The guy who wants results today, screw tomorrow. $1 today is worth much more than $2 tomorrow. Basically get-rich-quick investors who want to hold onto an investment just to make a buck and sell it after they have.
Take a look at share prices around earning report time - the usually start rising just after the quarter ends then what happens after that is up to the earnings report. Even if they meet their expected earnings, if they fail to meet analyst's expected earnings (even if they're completely ludicrous), the share price can drop 5% or more easily.
Execs (CxOs, board members) get major compensation via stock as well, so it encourages them to pump up the stock price and sell off shares when they can. "The Future" is a problem for the CEO's successor, and if things ar elooking bleak, expect the CEO to suddenly resign and dump their stock.
Maybe if instead of instant compensation execs had to hold all their stock-based (and option-based) compensation beyond their term. It's their bonus anyways, and maybe if they had to hold it for 5 years after they leave, they would consider the longer-term survival and health since their bonus pay only comes years later. Also helps ensure they pick a good leadership.
Another reason is licensing limitations.
A lot of the more complex devices (WiFi, Bluetooth, programmable NICs, etc) often run another OS to manage them. There's often no license to distribute the necessary source, nor is there any way to rebuild it without requiring the proprietary development environment.
It's usually some sort of RTOS. So no, firmware isn't just a simple program that starts at main() and handles requests from the host - it can often be handling real-time processing and many other tasks simultaneously. (And yes, these RTOS and such can run in a tiny bit of onboard RAM and flash)
Heck, the latest videocards often run something on the GPU itself for management.
Exactly. But it seems people have got it in their little heads that store-and-forward mechanisms (basically anything non-IM) is immediate. Probably started around the time people got the idea that texting and twitter were another form of IM. Or facebook messaging.
No, they aren't, and I don't respond immediately. Getting angry at me because you emailed/twittered/IM'd/texted me about an emergency isn't likely to make me respond any faster. If you really need me this instant, there's a phone, or walk over to me. Maybe IM, if I'm actively responding to it, if not, I may not see or attend to it.
Chances are, I may see your request and ignore it simply because it's not relevant at this point in time nor does it seem urgent to me (your lack of planning does not consitute an emergency on my part) and I'll get back to it later. Especially since I may be busy with other things - if it's that important there are many other ways to reach me and express its importance. Taking the time to pick up the phone is one, as is trying to actually physically find me.
If I'm stll not reachable, well, I'm probably doing something and enjoying my unreachability. There are very few true emergencies in life where an immediate response is required, and if it's one of those, there are many ways to reach me still. E.g., if I'm driving, call the police who can stop me and inform me of the situation. Even some emergencies that you're helpless to fix (e.g., overseas relative died) can certainly wait until I'm reachable again - there's nothing I can do and getting to the airport a couple of hours earlier isn't going to help.
It's the only way to cope.
I removed my card info from my iTunes account when the latest rounds of "iTunes Hacked!" news came out. Mostly as a precaution, since I really just use iTunes gift cards for purchaess. (Yes, I use gift cards - there seems to be a $5 off $25 or $10 off $50 gift card sale pretty damn often, so why pay full price?)
In which case you leave it off for a few seconds to let it settle and try again. And yes, you should know roughly how much gas you need. The capacity of the gas tank is in the manual for a reason and assuming it's roughly linear, ought to be able to figure out how much gas you need from both the gauge and the distance travelled.
The skill is particularly important these days as it's oftne pay-before-you-pump and if you wish to pay by cash, you need to guesstimate how much money you need to prepay. And some stations don't give change back if the change is under some limit ($2/5/10 - yes, $10. Over 3 gallons worth!)
Anyhow, another reason to not top off is because you need space at the top for the expansion and contraction of the gas. Leave too little and on a hot day liquid gas can back up into the gas vapor recovery system and destroy it.
Quite likely actually. It seems these reports surface every few months.
Heck, last year we've had many reports of hacked accounts being used to buy in-app purchases or raise rankings of apps.
So, the options are either a very lowlevel iTunes hack that only seems to steal a few hundred accounts at a time (iTunes has over 250M accounts according to today's keynote), a very big breach of iTunes that someone only seems to be using a few hundred accounts at a time, or, a bunch of people got phished or used the same password.
In fact, I've seen a number of Apple phishing emails over the past few months - usually advertising some Photoshop sale or something. They look pretty real too, but they're phishes (I get them on my non-iTunes accounts).
The general goal is to use in-app purchases of some $99 things to get easy money, and the easiest way is to phish some emails (like the fake Apple ones - honestly, Apple only sends me emails about their products, not about Photoshop... and never about SALES of said product).
Most likely, either a reused password, or a phish. Besides the Photoshop bundle offer, I saw another fake Apple phishing email, but I can't remember for what product. I think it was for an Adobe product though.
Halo 3 ended the Master Chief saga. That's it, the end, case closed. That's what Bungie has always said - it's the end of the 'Chief.
FTA:
It's a new story arc. No more Master Chief, other than odd cameo you'll find.
Halo Reach wasn't really a prequel either, it doesn't goes into the whole backstory of the 'Chief, but portrays a different part of the early years of the Human-Covenant war.
And there have been 3 non-'Chief games so far - Halo 3 ODST, Halo Wars, and Halo Reach, each delving inside a different part of the Halo Universe.
The only thing I can guess would be a post-'Chief world, or maybe the Human-Covenant-Flood war after Halo 3 (remember, the Humans and the Convenant are still at war - though the Elites (one race amongst the Convenant) have shifted sides with the Humans).
Because for every "usable everywhere" laptop passenger, there will be 100 passengers without, and who'll scream and shout about the one guy who cna use his laptop. And really, the flight attendant would hav eto know what laptops are and are not EMI shielded, when they really have more important things to do and know.
Also, certification takes time. Months. Laptops change almost weekly it seems - by the time a laptop gets through certification you'll porbably end up with something that's decidedly obsolete. And never mind stuff like upgrading RAM or hard drives - they can change the EM pattern a bit as well.
Plus, it's expensive - are people willing ot pay for it? Probalby not. And it has to be re-done if something fails.
Same goes for ereaders and the like - they're $140. A certified one will probably easily add 50% or more to the price, and even then they'll be replaced with a new one by the time it goes through certification.
That's why. Not enough people care about the 30 minutes per flight lost to takeoff/landing restrictions to really be willing to pay the premium. They'd just read a newspaper, a deadtree book, or something else. Or just take a nap.