True. I wonder just how fast and effecent you could make something like the Atom if you dropped all the old odds and ends that it has to support. Things like 8087, MMX, 286 instructions, and just had it support 64bit mode. Yes a lot of stuff would not run anymore but for say the mobile market and embedded it could be a real winner.
Intel has such a platform, I think it was called Pine Trail or something. It was an Atom CPU that had no PCI bus and was designed for mobile applications. It can boot Linux and doesn't use BIOS because it doesn't need to - I think it runs a modified u-boot or something.
Problem is, if you're running Android on it, you still have a power-sucking x86 on there (though Intel cheats by having an offboard MIPS processor take some of the load during video and audio playback, so the x86 can be turned off)
Besides, people don't want to be reminded that they've been suckered into buying so many gadgets that don't work together and that their laptop didn't replace their desktop and their phone didn't replace their laptop and that their tablet didn't replace their need for a phone, laptop or desktop. They still have them all. A company like HP can't hope to do what I think they are hoping to do and make them work together. They would end up not supporting "everything". Maybe a smaller company could
Uh, you do realize that Apple, when annoucing the iPad, felt it would be fitting in-betwee the laptop and the smartphone, right? Because they fit in different categories - the smartphone is carried everywhere and must be small and mobile. The tablet is less mobile and is carried around a home or on business in a bag, but offers more screen real estate to do work on than a phone. And a laptop is there because there are things a tablet can't do without compromising battery life, portability, or other things.
That's how Jobs introduced the iPad. Converging devices is nice and all, but it leads to compromises that are inherent in the whole thing. You can buy PC tablets, but they're heavy, don't last long and their UI is atrocious because apps were designed for a mouse and keyboard interaction. Now you want to a phone as well, which means I have to carry this 2lb tablet PC to make phone calls? And if the battery dies, I'm SOL?
It's why there's a range of devices, from dumb make-a-call-only phones, to smartphones, to tablets, to laptops, desktop-replacement laptops and full-blown desktops. Each has their strengths and weaknesses.
And for the record, I wear a watch - not a spiffy one, just a plastic Casio - it does what I want it to do - namely tell time without reaching for anything and having to turn it on.
Missing the point. This is an anti-trust suit. A trust is when companies that should be competing conspire for monopolistic powers/purposes. If individual patent holders were behaving in a free-market way, they would each challenge individually, giving google the ability to pick and choose which patents to license or give royalties to, should anyone actually have an unexpired patent that pertains. Google would also have to option of altering VP8 to not infringe on any patents held by people who were asking too high a price. Doing so would require knowing the price.
Instead, we have the formation of a cartel that plans to bundle all patents together so the holders are no longer competing, but form an illegal trust. Granted it is probably a toothless one without any actual infringed patents -- but whether or not they actually have any goods is still unknown, so it doesn't matter -- the legal situation must be treated as if they do in fact have infringing patents, since it is their express purpose to gather them.
in the meantime they are using the prospect of this bloc of patent holders as a basis to go out and make declarative public statements before actually producing any evidence that they actually have any patents that were infringed. As they have done such, they may be already guilty of anti-trust behavior, because they have utilized the common asset of their bluff.
Actually, companies are free to implement h.264 WITHOUT involving the MPEG-LA. It's just that the company is now responsible for dealing with licensing the 1000+ patents from everyone themselves.
All the MPEG-LA does is provide a generic license of "Pay us $X per device and you'll be licensed to use all these patents". You are free to go after each and every patent holder separately.
Of course, there are advantages to going with MPEG-LA than doing it yourself, notably, dealing with 1000+ legal agreements is pretty difficult and time-consuming, and there's no guarantee that you can get it cheaper. Also, if you're dealing with one of your major competitors, they could simply deny you a license, or charge extra for it (MPEG-LA licensing is RAND).
Of course, I don't know what the MPEG-LA licenses are like, but they could also include clauses that say the license is only valid for h.264, and other codecs using the same things (VP8 is supposed to allow use of the same blocks has h.264) could very well require extra licensing because that block's license terms only cover h.264, not VP8, h.265, SuperCoolCodec, or whatever. This is less about the software decoders, but the hardware accellerators you'll need for VP8 to be used in mobile devices.
End result could very well be that you're paying for an h.264 license in order to do hardware accellerated VP8 decode.
The funny thing is, the fastest clocked processors these days take hundreds of picoseconds to execute a single instruction.
Yes, at 3GHz, each instruction is around 333ps. So unless we have a CPU architecture that does trades in a single instruction, it's going ot take many nanoseconds just to get the information, process it, then issue the trade order.
Governments of the world have too much time on their hands if they average fiddling with local time zones 20 times per year.
Better than trying to get stuff done - ever notice that when government is busy fighting amongst themselves your life improves because they're not coming up with new ways to screw it up?
Of course, the real reason for the frequent updates is simply aggregating all the updates from the various governments. Daylight Saving Time being one of the worst since many (most?) countries don't have any sort of standardized start and stop dates - they just get planned and announced, and they change yearly.
It's a surprise the C library that uses these files can manage to keep all the time accounting straight...
Most drinking games I've played go just the opposite--the loser ends up further inebriated.
Well, besides the obvious levelling effect by handicapping the winner, it seems like having the loser take a drink just makes both sides want to lose the game. Which makes for a terribly uninteresting game. After all, the whole point of a drinking game is to get wasted, and having the winner end up sober doesn't seem to be a great way to accomplish that.
Now, in friendly drinking games loser-drinks might work quite well for some yuks. But winner-drinks is more sensible from a more competitive standpoint, at least to prevent deliberate losing. Some games aren't very fun if both players are trying to lose.
The thing is, that Joe Hacker need not comply with those. They pretty much kick in only when a device is offered for sale, and certifications are summarily ignored in the home builder market in any event.
Actually, Joe Hacker may have to care - if his computer emits enough RFI that a licensed user complains about it. The FCC will force the owner of said equipment to make it compliant (at owner's expense), whilst not operating said equipment until it is fixed. (And I'm not sure, but the FCC might also bill the owner for the costs of doing the interference search)
And the fines can be pretty large (much more than the $100 to get a decent low-end case will cost).
So all you really need to do is ensure your computer and the parts within are all clocked at speeds in the ISM bands and you should be safe... Or line the box with grounded aluminum foil.
Though, a more practical reason to not use this, besides any potential fire risk is if you have any sort of beverage near your PC. A small accident could easily cause the case to lose integrity and have parts touch each other. Invite your friends, have one of them spill their beer all over your PC and watch the power supply or hard drive fall from their locations. fun!
It seems, after reading through the paper (to the extent my non-MIT mind understood things) that this is based upon a pricing model of European options. European options can only be exercise on the expiry date, American options can be exercised any time before that date.
I'm not sure I follow. An "American option" as you call it has two dates - one is the vesting date (the first day the option may be exercised) and an expiry date (the date the option will no longer be valid). Sometimes the vesting date can be the same as the option purchase date (i.e., exercised immediately), othertimes, it can be expiry date, or anywhere in-between.
Are you saying European options only have a vesting date, and may be exercised at any time thereafter?
According to data we've acquired, around 50 percent of our digital camera clients are not satisfied with the way their faces look in a photograph, so we came up with the idea so our clients can fix parts they don't like about their faces after they've taken the picture.
Take it from a professional photographer, 90% of the time, the angle and lighting are all that matter between a good and a bad photo. 8% is mistakes and blemishes that can be corrected in Photoshop/Corel with a bit of cloning (probably going to be bloody hard to do it on a camera, even with a properly sized LCD. The mouse is simply necessary here.), Brightness-Contrast-Intensity modding, gamma, and a few other simple steps. The last 2% are those who are incredibly ugly, and can't be helped...
Alas, most people aren't photographers - they just want to snap a photo of themselves with their significant other doing stuff. And since digital photography is effectively "free", snapping 10 photos of the same scene doesn't matter to them.
So yeah, people could go and find the proper lighting and all that, but half the fun of digital photography (to most people) is just being able to take a snapshot of something right then and there, all that photography crap be damned.
So the basic point and shoots, as well as cellphone cameras, have to adapt to that use case - the user will just take a picture off the cuff and expect the subjects to look good in the photo. Press the shutter, and a perfect photo comes out.
Bet that remote kill and remove ability that some people were bitching about a few months back isn't looking like such a bad thing right now, is it?
Which raises an interesting question. When Apple did it (as in, discussed the remote kill switch, they haven't actually had to use it), everyone went bat-shit crazy. When Amazon did it, ditto.
When Google does it, it's good? Sure it may be for a good purpose, but the fact that it not only exists, but is used often enough.
And hell, even Apple has a problem in that they can't cleanly remotely delete apps - they could have iTunes delete its copy of the IPA file, but there's no guarantee a user won't have other copies as well (apps can exist on the device, inside the iTunes library, and backed up, and the design of the DRM was designed for this). Hell, the noise would be incredible if iTunes had remote-delete capability.
But non-violent (or less seriously violent) offenders, don't really need to spend their whole day just doing nothing, hanging around with other criminals, inevitably exposed to even worse influences than themselves. They can be doing something useful for both themselves and society. I thought up something along these lines: All elegible (non-violent) offenders, would have to exercise a mandatory occupation, and be assigned a base salary (leveled with minimum wage where it exists) but they will not be able to touch the significant part of it until the end of the sentence. All expenses would be payed for by the offender (taken from base salary). In fact, sentences might become a value that the offender would be condemned to generate through work, instead of a time length. Each offender could server his/her sentence at a preferred pace.
You still didn't address the "cheap labour" part.
Imagine getting pulled over for speeding and having the cop jail you for some bogus violation. Now you're being forced to do your regular job, except earning minimum wage rather than whatever you normally got. Employers will be all over this - why pay you $100K/year when they can simply bribe a public official to get you jailed and have you doing the exact same job at $20k/year? Even if they paid the official $50k for the task, they're still ahead $30k. If you can get jailed on false charges for 5 years, that's $100k payout instead of $500k, which gives the company a huge incentive to corrupt easily-corrupted officials. And that's just one person - if a company needs 10 people, well, instead of $1M/year salary, give them $100k/year, and indenture them for 5 years, a savings of $4.5M. The public officials can take $2.5M and the company is still $2M ahead (CEO bonus!).
C'mon, we've all seen the damage that it can do (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_of_Consciousness_%28The_Outer_Limits%29 ) - do we really want to rely on someone who can't use this to shut down the network before a botnet or virus attack kills us all?
Actually, Sony's been open to people using the Move for the same sort of hacks as people are using the Kinect for. what Sony is against is people hacking the ps3 itself to play pirated software. MS has a similar policy when people hack the 360 to try to do the same thing.
Move isn't terribly interesting to hack - it's really just an improved Wiimote turned around, and those hacks have existed for years now.
And Microsoft vs. Sony - Microsoft's still less evil. There's one open hack in the Xbox360 - and it lets you play pirated games. In fact, that's all you can do with it. You can't install Linux with it. And Microsoft's ability to detect it is questionable. It's the DVD-ROM hack where you flash in an alternate firmware that tricks the 360 into thinking it's dealing with a real Xbox360 DVD rather than a burned one.
The other hacks have been closed a long time ago, and Microsoft hasn't really gone ape-shit over all the piracy and crap. Xbox360 piracy is huge compared to the PS3's piracy, mostly because the Xbox360's been open for piracy since a few months since launch. The PS3's ability for piracy only came out just a few months ago.
Yet we don't see Microsoft trying to sue everyone - sure they ban you from Live, but that's it (your console can sill play pirated games, and legit games, just not on Live). And hell, there are hacks to let you use cheap SATA laptop drives instead of paying 10x as much for the Microsoft ones - Microsoft still hasn't bothered going against people who use hddhackr.exe for that purpose.
The only questionable thing was when Microsoft engaged the Xbox authentication chip in the memory cards that locked out Datel cards (even then we knew it was coming - why else did the memory cards have an authentication chip like the Kinect does?).
No, Sony's gone ape-shit over piracy, which is strange since piracy was huge on their PSX and PS2s, and they seemed to do OK. Maybe it was an overreaction to what happened on the PSP, but then again, CFW is so much better than the official firmware (Sony crippled video playback off non-UMD sources - they eventually relented when CFW had the non-crippled playback for ages).
Heck, I'd say all the platforms this generation are doing fairly well - the Wii's probably the most pirated platform nowadays (as is the DS line), followed by the Xbox360. PS3's just joining the crowd.
And Sony - realize that hackers and pirates are not the same group of people. But hackers and pirates do have shared interests. Hackers want to load homebrew. Pirates use that ability to load games. Give hackers the ability to load homebrew and you drain away a lot of talent who would otherwise end up helping the pirates. Perhaps the best move now is just reinstate OtherOS with full hardware access now (because it's already available) - eat the loss in possible licensing fees of some indie games rather than having to battle with pirates who hold the master keys to the PS3. Drain the talent of those who can make CFW, keep them happy, and the pirate's CFW supply would be slowed.
They had a segment about Kinect hacking on Science Friday last November. One of the researchers complained that the Wii Remote had become a ubiquitous tool in some fields because it packed a lot of useful sensors and a wireless connection into a cheap, sturdy gizmo, but Nintendo just weren't interested in supporting them. The MS spokesperson used this as an opportunity to wax lyrical about how they'd deliberately not engineered any barriers to talking with the hardware, and their plans for the research SDK. Whether it's cultural or not, it's obvious that Microsoft's keen to capitalise on it.
Wow, some nice spin by Microsoft PR - the real reason there's no encryption and whatnot on Kinect is far more obvious - the Xbox360's USB 2 isn't that fast. That's partly why the IR depth sensor only works at QVGA and the RGB at VGA - there's just too much data flowing through the system to support 4 microphones and 2 VGA cameras at 30/60fps (not sure what the real framerate is).
Microsoft's supposed to be improving the Xbox360's USB stack to get closer to its theoretical limit (45MB/sec?) so it can set the IR depth sensor to VGA as well to improve depth sensing fidelity.
That's the reason reason why there's no encryption - the datarate is too high for the Xbox360.
It's also for those who are working remotely almost constantly - pushing patches and updates can be frustratingly hard when the IP address of the remote PC is always changing and may not be connected more than a few hours at a time. Especially if the only times it connects to the office LAN is the annual meeting, or for some PC, the time it was set up by IT for the guy who never stepped inside the building (PC shipped to them, phone interviews, etc.).
Think salespeople and 1-person "satellite offices".
Sure there are many solutions available but some companies prefer to deal with a single vendor (Microsoft) rather than multiple (Microsoft+remote PC admin software).
Your comments are bogus until you tell me how the malware is installed on my Mac. Oh, I have to enter an administrator password to allow it? Well, then, shame on me for allowing it in! If it can sneak in without my explicit permission, then your comments are valid.
The same way Android phones get infected - alternative methods of software delivery. I believe a couple of years ago there were pirated torrents of Microsoft Office 2008, iWork, iLife, and Photoshop CSwhatever that had an additional package in their dmg's that were NOT in the official releases. That additional package installed a simple botnet into your Mac.
It's not as uncommon as you may think. People wnat stuff for free, and everyone knows that, so malware authors hitch a ride by infecting keygens, cracks and other things to spread. You may think you're protected, but it just takes one torrent or other thing. (Or how and why people will go to great lengths ot use alternative Marketplaces for Android, as well).
If it failed to launch, I don't see how it would be the final launch, considering there are some things on there that NEED to get to ISS.
Still, it's Discovery's final launch, regardless of if it blew up after launching or was successful. It may not be the final shuttle launch, but it's Discovery's. Remember, there's also another shuttle on the launchpad too for emergencies. Atlantis, I think?
Main criteria (IMHO) is the ability to send payments without giving the seller your CC #
There's lots of systems for that - Google Checkout, Amazon Payments, etc. None of them expose your credit card number to the seller.
There aren't many systems for accepting credit cards on an ad-hoc basis. If you're a store, it's easy - get a merchant account, use Google Checkout or Amazon Payments.
If you're Joe Average, it's pretty much impossible to accept credit cards - the requirements for a merchant account can be excruiatingly high (minimum transactions a month, minimum amount charged a month, possible data security, etc).
eBay would be dead in the water without Paypal, which is why they bought it. Online auctions would be a PITA if the buyer had to go the post office, get a money order, send it off, wait a week for seller to receive it, wait another couple of weeks for it to clear, then wait another week for the item to arrive. What would take a week at most with a normal retailer takes a month though eBay. (An alternative would be to have eBay process the transactions for you but that would involve a ton of complications - something best left to entities like Paypal).
And for those saying CC are protected, yes, but how many CC processors get breached? Sure you're not responsible for the fraudulent purchase, but damn is it inconvenient to have to replace your card - reset all your payment methods with Amazon and other companies, any direct billing to credit cards have to be reset (nevermind if the billing date comes up just after the card gets cancelled), etc. Horrendous pain. And no, direct withdrawal from a bank account is not an option (and an even stupider idea).
Temporary credit card numbers are an option, if your bank provides it (a lot don't). And some idiotic merchants require a payment method before showing you a bloody subtotal.
Paypal is one of those necessary evils. They're not great, but damned if there's another way to take money by credit card. The ability to accept a random amount from a random person at a random time - it's the one big niche that neither Google nor Amazon seem to be trying to enter, for whatever reason.
I cannot imagine why any sane person or organization would use PayPal as a bank-like entity after their many, many, MANY abuses of their "not a bank" status.
Seriously... It surprises more to hear about people successfully getting their money out, than stories like the FP.
Really simple, folks - Just stop using them. Period. They have the right not to serve us, and we have the right not to use them. Exercise that right, and put these bastards permanently in the red ASAP.
So how are you supposed to accept credit cards then?
No one else lets you accept credit cards from random strangers without having to follow some really weird and arcane rules to satisfy the merchant account rules. Google Checkout doesn't (it requires you be a store), not sure about Amazon Payments, but I think it's similar as well.
Face it - the only real reason people use Paypal is because it's pretty much the only way Joe Average can transfer some money to John Smith via credit card. Sure you can go to the post office and get a money order, mail it off, hope it arrives a week later,... rigamarole, but that seems idiotic in this day and age of fast and easy e-commerce.
And the other options aren't much better - western union? egold?
Until someone manages to find a way to allow two random people on the internet send random amounts of money via credit card, Paypal's it. You want to put them out of business? Set it up in Paypal's niche.
It's also why eBay bought Paypal - because they're very synergistic.
And here's another question - why did they use Paypal? Why couldn't they set up their own merchant account? Or use Google Checkout? Or Amazon Payments? Most likely, either the fees are higher (Paypal may charge a lot, but credit card processors aren't cheap, either), or they didn't qualify. If they didn't qualify, Paypal ends up being the only way to accept credit cards.
So why are people falling into the same trap again and again? Google Checkout and Amazon Payments should also work, as does a merchant account...
Actually, for Android, it's called Google Marketplace for differentiation. And it's not "alternative app stores", it's "alternative marketplaces".
Geez, you'd think with all the Android users out there, they'd at least try to keep their terminology straight.
In iOS, it's called "App Store" to refer to the iTunes App Store. In Android, it's called "Market" everywhere - it's the Google Marketplace, not Google App Store. Even the URL is market.android.com, not appstore.
Actually, it's easy enough to create the same sort of situation. Many U.S. banks have offered limited fund debit cards for years. Just set one up for a kid and load it up once a month as part of their allowance. If a kid maxes it out buying online toys, how is that any different from when I used to spend my entire allowance on Spiderman and Batman comic books?
You can do it with iTunes as well - your iTunes account can be funded with iTunes gift cards easily. And I'm seeing discounted iTunes cards for retail sale quite often nowadays - seems some retailer or other is offering the $25 card for $20 or the $50 card for $40. The max they can do is drain the gift card away.
I had removed the credit card off my account during that whole scare over iTunes accounts being hacked, and funding it from gift cards on sale. Not a bad deal, either.
Face it - they're both dying. Between home theatres and consoles, their days are numbered.
We complain about bad movies, but movies are intended still to put asses in seats, not sell DVDs. Yet lots of people complain about the theatre experience - cellphones, rude people, expensive tickets, etc.
Arcades have the same issue - the good game machine is always busy, why keep pumping in quarters, etc.
And the biggest issue of all - if you have responsibilities, it's a lot easier ot sit one's butt on the couch for a movie or a game versus arranging a sitter, going out, playing a bit, returning home, etc. (And when the trip can be a half hour each way, it's a complete loss of an hour in one's day - an hour that oculd be spent watching the movie or gaming - important when most people are rushed and tired).
Sure, arcades and theatres provide a more social experience and have their advantages (big screens, pinball). But the reality is, they're not big draws anymore given the inconvenience. Theatres have big screens and latest movies, arcades have pinball (whose experience can't be replicated virtually - you miss out of the feel from real balls hitting real objects), but the draw isn't there.
I'd love to play pinball, but going out of my way to play it isn't appealing. And a movie has to be really good for me to see it, but even so I've only gone at most once a year.
Non-techy users can still use Android marketplace. If you believe yourself to be a tech user and want to try something else, you can feel free to do so. But its your risk.
Actually, non-techies can use alternative marketplaces as well, just as non-techies can jailbreak their iPhones and even use ssh.
Technology skill level is not a factor - if all you have to do is follow a bunch of steps to get what you want (free apps, free pr0n, whatever), you'll find the number of people who do it suddenly rise.
Why do you think a lot of jailbroken iPhones have default passwords set? The people jailbreaking them just followed instructions of "Download program X, run this, click that, click that, then wait 10 minutes. When you're done, reboot your phone, tap this icon, tap this thing, type this, tap that, blah blah blah". And before you know it, they've installed openssh, ssh'd into their phone and done a bunch of things, to get whatever they needed, but also left their phone vulnerable.
Androids are no different. They may tell their friends that they got some new cool Android phone, and their friend tells them "hey, follow this link, it'll tell you how ot get some great apps for free", and they'll just blindly follow the instructions.
It's even why all those people dismissing those trojans and botnets infecting chinese alternative marketplaces as irrelevant are wrong. If those chinese marketplaces are offering stuff people want (free apps - why pay for them?), you'll find people will do it. Even if you warn them "Don't ever use this app" or "that site contains nothing but viruses", you'll find them accessing it if some web page tells them to.
Anyone's who had to clean up their parent's PC or their kid's PC for the Nth time already know this, and it seems if you put a block up, they'd find a way around it. (Not unlike the behavior of tech savvy people when they encounter a block). Sure they won't ask you why they can't access their favorite virus-installing pr0n site anymore, they'll ask their friends who'll give them a bunch of proxy servers and crap.
There is no solution, either - it's fundamentally a social problem. People jailbreak because they seem some cool app not in the App Store. People install alternative marketplaces to get that 99 cent app for free.
No technological hurdle is too high if you have someone wanting something, and someone providing that thing they want. As long as someone somewhere has written a set of steps on how to do it, it will happen.
Even more annoying is these people will follow those steps to the letter while your steps and instructions are ignored.
i'd say 50-100 grand is a small price to pay if we are to even get closer to a conclusion about whether a device used by billions of people is a significant health risk or not.
Problem is, we're no closer to that conclusion than we are before.
All we know is there's *some* effect. Whether it's good for us, bad for us, we don't know, and the study doesn't attempt to even answer it, other than saying "further study is required". Not that it was a waste of time or money, since it shows the brain is somehow responding to something, but what, and its effects, are unknown. Perhaps to be studied later.
This is actually kind of important, since a lot of devices are containing cell modems in it (e.g., Kindle, nook, tablets), and while users may not hold their devices to their heads, they may rest them on their chest whist carrying a baby or a child, so the baby's head may be getting a dose of that cell signal.
So many people complain about Apple's 'walled garden', and the 'necessity' to jailbreak your iPhone if you want to be able to do more - at the risk that an update might brick your jail-broken phone.
Sadly, it's actually quite difficult to brick an iPhone. Apple's put in some really lowlevel code that exists in silicon that ensures that iTunes can pretty much restore it always. If the basic OS can load, the "restore" optoin works. If not, you can put the phone into DFU mode which basically reformats the storage media, reloads the OS loader and kernel and all that fun stuff.
The only time I've heard of actual "bricking" was those with early iPhones who decided to do some hacky SIM unlock thing that Apple even warned about, which ended up corrupting the baseband firmware. Even then the 2.0 update fixed things up again. And I believe the OS still ran, just the baseband was hooped so you didn't get any phone functionality.
Slashdot Mirror
Intel has such a platform, I think it was called Pine Trail or something. It was an Atom CPU that had no PCI bus and was designed for mobile applications. It can boot Linux and doesn't use BIOS because it doesn't need to - I think it runs a modified u-boot or something.
Problem is, if you're running Android on it, you still have a power-sucking x86 on there (though Intel cheats by having an offboard MIPS processor take some of the load during video and audio playback, so the x86 can be turned off)
Uh, you do realize that Apple, when annoucing the iPad, felt it would be fitting in-betwee the laptop and the smartphone, right? Because they fit in different categories - the smartphone is carried everywhere and must be small and mobile. The tablet is less mobile and is carried around a home or on business in a bag, but offers more screen real estate to do work on than a phone. And a laptop is there because there are things a tablet can't do without compromising battery life, portability, or other things.
That's how Jobs introduced the iPad. Converging devices is nice and all, but it leads to compromises that are inherent in the whole thing. You can buy PC tablets, but they're heavy, don't last long and their UI is atrocious because apps were designed for a mouse and keyboard interaction. Now you want to a phone as well, which means I have to carry this 2lb tablet PC to make phone calls? And if the battery dies, I'm SOL?
It's why there's a range of devices, from dumb make-a-call-only phones, to smartphones, to tablets, to laptops, desktop-replacement laptops and full-blown desktops. Each has their strengths and weaknesses.
And for the record, I wear a watch - not a spiffy one, just a plastic Casio - it does what I want it to do - namely tell time without reaching for anything and having to turn it on.
Actually, companies are free to implement h.264 WITHOUT involving the MPEG-LA. It's just that the company is now responsible for dealing with licensing the 1000+ patents from everyone themselves.
All the MPEG-LA does is provide a generic license of "Pay us $X per device and you'll be licensed to use all these patents". You are free to go after each and every patent holder separately.
Of course, there are advantages to going with MPEG-LA than doing it yourself, notably, dealing with 1000+ legal agreements is pretty difficult and time-consuming, and there's no guarantee that you can get it cheaper. Also, if you're dealing with one of your major competitors, they could simply deny you a license, or charge extra for it (MPEG-LA licensing is RAND).
Of course, I don't know what the MPEG-LA licenses are like, but they could also include clauses that say the license is only valid for h.264, and other codecs using the same things (VP8 is supposed to allow use of the same blocks has h.264) could very well require extra licensing because that block's license terms only cover h.264, not VP8, h.265, SuperCoolCodec, or whatever. This is less about the software decoders, but the hardware accellerators you'll need for VP8 to be used in mobile devices.
End result could very well be that you're paying for an h.264 license in order to do hardware accellerated VP8 decode.
The funny thing is, the fastest clocked processors these days take hundreds of picoseconds to execute a single instruction.
Yes, at 3GHz, each instruction is around 333ps. So unless we have a CPU architecture that does trades in a single instruction, it's going ot take many nanoseconds just to get the information, process it, then issue the trade order.
Better than trying to get stuff done - ever notice that when government is busy fighting amongst themselves your life improves because they're not coming up with new ways to screw it up?
Of course, the real reason for the frequent updates is simply aggregating all the updates from the various governments. Daylight Saving Time being one of the worst since many (most?) countries don't have any sort of standardized start and stop dates - they just get planned and announced, and they change yearly.
It's a surprise the C library that uses these files can manage to keep all the time accounting straight...
Well, besides the obvious levelling effect by handicapping the winner, it seems like having the loser take a drink just makes both sides want to lose the game. Which makes for a terribly uninteresting game. After all, the whole point of a drinking game is to get wasted, and having the winner end up sober doesn't seem to be a great way to accomplish that.
Now, in friendly drinking games loser-drinks might work quite well for some yuks. But winner-drinks is more sensible from a more competitive standpoint, at least to prevent deliberate losing. Some games aren't very fun if both players are trying to lose.
Actually, Joe Hacker may have to care - if his computer emits enough RFI that a licensed user complains about it. The FCC will force the owner of said equipment to make it compliant (at owner's expense), whilst not operating said equipment until it is fixed. (And I'm not sure, but the FCC might also bill the owner for the costs of doing the interference search)
And the fines can be pretty large (much more than the $100 to get a decent low-end case will cost).
So all you really need to do is ensure your computer and the parts within are all clocked at speeds in the ISM bands and you should be safe... Or line the box with grounded aluminum foil.
Though, a more practical reason to not use this, besides any potential fire risk is if you have any sort of beverage near your PC. A small accident could easily cause the case to lose integrity and have parts touch each other. Invite your friends, have one of them spill their beer all over your PC and watch the power supply or hard drive fall from their locations. fun!
I'm not sure I follow. An "American option" as you call it has two dates - one is the vesting date (the first day the option may be exercised) and an expiry date (the date the option will no longer be valid). Sometimes the vesting date can be the same as the option purchase date (i.e., exercised immediately), othertimes, it can be expiry date, or anywhere in-between.
Are you saying European options only have a vesting date, and may be exercised at any time thereafter?
Alas, most people aren't photographers - they just want to snap a photo of themselves with their significant other doing stuff. And since digital photography is effectively "free", snapping 10 photos of the same scene doesn't matter to them.
So yeah, people could go and find the proper lighting and all that, but half the fun of digital photography (to most people) is just being able to take a snapshot of something right then and there, all that photography crap be damned.
So the basic point and shoots, as well as cellphone cameras, have to adapt to that use case - the user will just take a picture off the cuff and expect the subjects to look good in the photo. Press the shutter, and a perfect photo comes out.
Which raises an interesting question. When Apple did it (as in, discussed the remote kill switch, they haven't actually had to use it), everyone went bat-shit crazy. When Amazon did it, ditto.
When Google does it, it's good? Sure it may be for a good purpose, but the fact that it not only exists, but is used often enough.
And hell, even Apple has a problem in that they can't cleanly remotely delete apps - they could have iTunes delete its copy of the IPA file, but there's no guarantee a user won't have other copies as well (apps can exist on the device, inside the iTunes library, and backed up, and the design of the DRM was designed for this). Hell, the noise would be incredible if iTunes had remote-delete capability.
You still didn't address the "cheap labour" part.
Imagine getting pulled over for speeding and having the cop jail you for some bogus violation. Now you're being forced to do your regular job, except earning minimum wage rather than whatever you normally got. Employers will be all over this - why pay you $100K/year when they can simply bribe a public official to get you jailed and have you doing the exact same job at $20k/year? Even if they paid the official $50k for the task, they're still ahead $30k. If you can get jailed on false charges for 5 years, that's $100k payout instead of $500k, which gives the company a huge incentive to corrupt easily-corrupted officials. And that's just one person - if a company needs 10 people, well, instead of $1M/year salary, give them $100k/year, and indenture them for 5 years, a savings of $4.5M. The public officials can take $2.5M and the company is still $2M ahead (CEO bonus!).
C'mon, we've all seen the damage that it can do (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_of_Consciousness_%28The_Outer_Limits%29 ) - do we really want to rely on someone who can't use this to shut down the network before a botnet or virus attack kills us all?
Move isn't terribly interesting to hack - it's really just an improved Wiimote turned around, and those hacks have existed for years now.
And Microsoft vs. Sony - Microsoft's still less evil. There's one open hack in the Xbox360 - and it lets you play pirated games. In fact, that's all you can do with it. You can't install Linux with it. And Microsoft's ability to detect it is questionable. It's the DVD-ROM hack where you flash in an alternate firmware that tricks the 360 into thinking it's dealing with a real Xbox360 DVD rather than a burned one.
The other hacks have been closed a long time ago, and Microsoft hasn't really gone ape-shit over all the piracy and crap. Xbox360 piracy is huge compared to the PS3's piracy, mostly because the Xbox360's been open for piracy since a few months since launch. The PS3's ability for piracy only came out just a few months ago.
Yet we don't see Microsoft trying to sue everyone - sure they ban you from Live, but that's it (your console can sill play pirated games, and legit games, just not on Live). And hell, there are hacks to let you use cheap SATA laptop drives instead of paying 10x as much for the Microsoft ones - Microsoft still hasn't bothered going against people who use hddhackr.exe for that purpose.
The only questionable thing was when Microsoft engaged the Xbox authentication chip in the memory cards that locked out Datel cards (even then we knew it was coming - why else did the memory cards have an authentication chip like the Kinect does?).
No, Sony's gone ape-shit over piracy, which is strange since piracy was huge on their PSX and PS2s, and they seemed to do OK. Maybe it was an overreaction to what happened on the PSP, but then again, CFW is so much better than the official firmware (Sony crippled video playback off non-UMD sources - they eventually relented when CFW had the non-crippled playback for ages).
Heck, I'd say all the platforms this generation are doing fairly well - the Wii's probably the most pirated platform nowadays (as is the DS line), followed by the Xbox360. PS3's just joining the crowd.
And Sony - realize that hackers and pirates are not the same group of people. But hackers and pirates do have shared interests. Hackers want to load homebrew. Pirates use that ability to load games. Give hackers the ability to load homebrew and you drain away a lot of talent who would otherwise end up helping the pirates. Perhaps the best move now is just reinstate OtherOS with full hardware access now (because it's already available) - eat the loss in possible licensing fees of some indie games rather than having to battle with pirates who hold the master keys to the PS3. Drain the talent of those who can make CFW, keep them happy, and the pirate's CFW supply would be slowed.
Wow, some nice spin by Microsoft PR - the real reason there's no encryption and whatnot on Kinect is far more obvious - the Xbox360's USB 2 isn't that fast. That's partly why the IR depth sensor only works at QVGA and the RGB at VGA - there's just too much data flowing through the system to support 4 microphones and 2 VGA cameras at 30/60fps (not sure what the real framerate is).
Microsoft's supposed to be improving the Xbox360's USB stack to get closer to its theoretical limit (45MB/sec?) so it can set the IR depth sensor to VGA as well to improve depth sensing fidelity.
That's the reason reason why there's no encryption - the datarate is too high for the Xbox360.
It's also for those who are working remotely almost constantly - pushing patches and updates can be frustratingly hard when the IP address of the remote PC is always changing and may not be connected more than a few hours at a time. Especially if the only times it connects to the office LAN is the annual meeting, or for some PC, the time it was set up by IT for the guy who never stepped inside the building (PC shipped to them, phone interviews, etc.).
Think salespeople and 1-person "satellite offices".
Sure there are many solutions available but some companies prefer to deal with a single vendor (Microsoft) rather than multiple (Microsoft+remote PC admin software).
The same way Android phones get infected - alternative methods of software delivery. I believe a couple of years ago there were pirated torrents of Microsoft Office 2008, iWork, iLife, and Photoshop CSwhatever that had an additional package in their dmg's that were NOT in the official releases. That additional package installed a simple botnet into your Mac.
It's not as uncommon as you may think. People wnat stuff for free, and everyone knows that, so malware authors hitch a ride by infecting keygens, cracks and other things to spread. You may think you're protected, but it just takes one torrent or other thing. (Or how and why people will go to great lengths ot use alternative Marketplaces for Android, as well).
http://www.macrumors.com/2009/01/22/iwork-09-torrent-carrying-os-x-trojan/
http://www.intego.com/news/ism0901.asp
http://www.techjaws.com/osx-trojan-on-the-loose/
Still, it's Discovery's final launch, regardless of if it blew up after launching or was successful. It may not be the final shuttle launch, but it's Discovery's. Remember, there's also another shuttle on the launchpad too for emergencies. Atlantis, I think?
There's lots of systems for that - Google Checkout, Amazon Payments, etc. None of them expose your credit card number to the seller.
There aren't many systems for accepting credit cards on an ad-hoc basis. If you're a store, it's easy - get a merchant account, use Google Checkout or Amazon Payments.
If you're Joe Average, it's pretty much impossible to accept credit cards - the requirements for a merchant account can be excruiatingly high (minimum transactions a month, minimum amount charged a month, possible data security, etc).
eBay would be dead in the water without Paypal, which is why they bought it. Online auctions would be a PITA if the buyer had to go the post office, get a money order, send it off, wait a week for seller to receive it, wait another couple of weeks for it to clear, then wait another week for the item to arrive. What would take a week at most with a normal retailer takes a month though eBay. (An alternative would be to have eBay process the transactions for you but that would involve a ton of complications - something best left to entities like Paypal).
And for those saying CC are protected, yes, but how many CC processors get breached? Sure you're not responsible for the fraudulent purchase, but damn is it inconvenient to have to replace your card - reset all your payment methods with Amazon and other companies, any direct billing to credit cards have to be reset (nevermind if the billing date comes up just after the card gets cancelled), etc. Horrendous pain. And no, direct withdrawal from a bank account is not an option (and an even stupider idea).
Temporary credit card numbers are an option, if your bank provides it (a lot don't). And some idiotic merchants require a payment method before showing you a bloody subtotal.
Paypal is one of those necessary evils. They're not great, but damned if there's another way to take money by credit card. The ability to accept a random amount from a random person at a random time - it's the one big niche that neither Google nor Amazon seem to be trying to enter, for whatever reason.
So how are you supposed to accept credit cards then?
No one else lets you accept credit cards from random strangers without having to follow some really weird and arcane rules to satisfy the merchant account rules. Google Checkout doesn't (it requires you be a store), not sure about Amazon Payments, but I think it's similar as well.
Face it - the only real reason people use Paypal is because it's pretty much the only way Joe Average can transfer some money to John Smith via credit card. Sure you can go to the post office and get a money order, mail it off, hope it arrives a week later, ... rigamarole, but that seems idiotic in this day and age of fast and easy e-commerce.
And the other options aren't much better - western union? egold?
Until someone manages to find a way to allow two random people on the internet send random amounts of money via credit card, Paypal's it. You want to put them out of business? Set it up in Paypal's niche.
It's also why eBay bought Paypal - because they're very synergistic.
And here's another question - why did they use Paypal? Why couldn't they set up their own merchant account? Or use Google Checkout? Or Amazon Payments? Most likely, either the fees are higher (Paypal may charge a lot, but credit card processors aren't cheap, either), or they didn't qualify. If they didn't qualify, Paypal ends up being the only way to accept credit cards.
So why are people falling into the same trap again and again? Google Checkout and Amazon Payments should also work, as does a merchant account...
Actually, for Android, it's called Google Marketplace for differentiation. And it's not "alternative app stores", it's "alternative marketplaces".
Geez, you'd think with all the Android users out there, they'd at least try to keep their terminology straight.
In iOS, it's called "App Store" to refer to the iTunes App Store. In Android, it's called "Market" everywhere - it's the Google Marketplace, not Google App Store. Even the URL is market.android.com, not appstore.
You can do it with iTunes as well - your iTunes account can be funded with iTunes gift cards easily. And I'm seeing discounted iTunes cards for retail sale quite often nowadays - seems some retailer or other is offering the $25 card for $20 or the $50 card for $40. The max they can do is drain the gift card away.
I had removed the credit card off my account during that whole scare over iTunes accounts being hacked, and funding it from gift cards on sale. Not a bad deal, either.
Face it - they're both dying. Between home theatres and consoles, their days are numbered.
We complain about bad movies, but movies are intended still to put asses in seats, not sell DVDs. Yet lots of people complain about the theatre experience - cellphones, rude people, expensive tickets, etc.
Arcades have the same issue - the good game machine is always busy, why keep pumping in quarters, etc.
And the biggest issue of all - if you have responsibilities, it's a lot easier ot sit one's butt on the couch for a movie or a game versus arranging a sitter, going out, playing a bit, returning home, etc. (And when the trip can be a half hour each way, it's a complete loss of an hour in one's day - an hour that oculd be spent watching the movie or gaming - important when most people are rushed and tired).
Sure, arcades and theatres provide a more social experience and have their advantages (big screens, pinball). But the reality is, they're not big draws anymore given the inconvenience. Theatres have big screens and latest movies, arcades have pinball (whose experience can't be replicated virtually - you miss out of the feel from real balls hitting real objects), but the draw isn't there.
I'd love to play pinball, but going out of my way to play it isn't appealing. And a movie has to be really good for me to see it, but even so I've only gone at most once a year.
Actually, non-techies can use alternative marketplaces as well, just as non-techies can jailbreak their iPhones and even use ssh.
Technology skill level is not a factor - if all you have to do is follow a bunch of steps to get what you want (free apps, free pr0n, whatever), you'll find the number of people who do it suddenly rise.
Why do you think a lot of jailbroken iPhones have default passwords set? The people jailbreaking them just followed instructions of "Download program X, run this, click that, click that, then wait 10 minutes. When you're done, reboot your phone, tap this icon, tap this thing, type this, tap that, blah blah blah". And before you know it, they've installed openssh, ssh'd into their phone and done a bunch of things, to get whatever they needed, but also left their phone vulnerable.
Androids are no different. They may tell their friends that they got some new cool Android phone, and their friend tells them "hey, follow this link, it'll tell you how ot get some great apps for free", and they'll just blindly follow the instructions.
It's even why all those people dismissing those trojans and botnets infecting chinese alternative marketplaces as irrelevant are wrong. If those chinese marketplaces are offering stuff people want (free apps - why pay for them?), you'll find people will do it. Even if you warn them "Don't ever use this app" or "that site contains nothing but viruses", you'll find them accessing it if some web page tells them to.
Anyone's who had to clean up their parent's PC or their kid's PC for the Nth time already know this, and it seems if you put a block up, they'd find a way around it. (Not unlike the behavior of tech savvy people when they encounter a block). Sure they won't ask you why they can't access their favorite virus-installing pr0n site anymore, they'll ask their friends who'll give them a bunch of proxy servers and crap.
There is no solution, either - it's fundamentally a social problem. People jailbreak because they seem some cool app not in the App Store. People install alternative marketplaces to get that 99 cent app for free.
No technological hurdle is too high if you have someone wanting something, and someone providing that thing they want. As long as someone somewhere has written a set of steps on how to do it, it will happen.
Even more annoying is these people will follow those steps to the letter while your steps and instructions are ignored.
Problem is, we're no closer to that conclusion than we are before.
All we know is there's *some* effect. Whether it's good for us, bad for us, we don't know, and the study doesn't attempt to even answer it, other than saying "further study is required". Not that it was a waste of time or money, since it shows the brain is somehow responding to something, but what, and its effects, are unknown. Perhaps to be studied later.
This is actually kind of important, since a lot of devices are containing cell modems in it (e.g., Kindle, nook, tablets), and while users may not hold their devices to their heads, they may rest them on their chest whist carrying a baby or a child, so the baby's head may be getting a dose of that cell signal.
Sadly, it's actually quite difficult to brick an iPhone. Apple's put in some really lowlevel code that exists in silicon that ensures that iTunes can pretty much restore it always. If the basic OS can load, the "restore" optoin works. If not, you can put the phone into DFU mode which basically reformats the storage media, reloads the OS loader and kernel and all that fun stuff.
The only time I've heard of actual "bricking" was those with early iPhones who decided to do some hacky SIM unlock thing that Apple even warned about, which ended up corrupting the baseband firmware. Even then the 2.0 update fixed things up again. And I believe the OS still ran, just the baseband was hooped so you didn't get any phone functionality.