Hell, don't discount Apple either - there's a pretty wide selection of more casual games in the App Store that are pretty good, and most aren't a huge investment. After all, Angry Birds for the iPhone is still 99 cents. And there's plenty more talked-about games in there where the goal is strategy. The App Store seems to have brought out every indie developer out there.
There's probably a few more for Android as well.
And the Xbox360's Indie area has a few gems to it too. NOt sure about Sony since I don't go on PSN anymore since I refuse to update my PS3 (I might update to 3.41 to jailbreak so I can buy the disc and play a jailbroken version of Heavy Rain 2).
Corn has been sequenced so the bio-tech companies can find out where to insert the gene for resistance to Roundup and the gene that makes it infertile after one generation. (forcing farmers to buy new seed every year)
And when those terminator genes don't work, Monsanto sues the farmer next door for patent infringement because his corn cross-bred with Monsanto corn. It's the perfect scam - get one farm using your corn, and it infects every farm around it, so you sue to get more license agreements.
Who knows. If Acer is willing to provide their own stores they should have no problem supporting MeeGo. It may have more to do with the fact that there's no reference UI they can be lazy and make minor modifications to before pushing it out.
Ah, but there's already a supply of Android apps out there. Supply of MeeGo apps is a bit lower. If you're running a store, you might as well have something existing devs can submit apps they already have rather than write new ones.
Though, this proliferation of Android app stores has me wondering if it'll devolve into what happened with phone java apps - each dev has to negotiate with each carrier to carry their java app. Right now, most devs want the Android marketplace to get most Android devices out there, but as more Android devices get released without Google's apps and such, these alternative app stores might gain prominence.
(I'm still waiting for the Installuous app "store"...)
What I don't get is why it's called Rage HD being an iPhone game... low-res = HD? Even the iPad's resolution is meh
It's a silly naming convention people call iPad and iPhone4 (with retina support) apps. It's not high-def, just like HD Radio is not high-def (it's "hybrid digital" because it uses subcarriers on the analog FM channel). It is, though "higher definition". Other app developers use "XL" and "for iPad" to differentiate.
There are three standard resolutions to iOS - HVGA (320x480), DVGA (double VGA, iPhone 4 "retina", 640x960), and XGA (1024x768). Since the vast majority of iOS devices out there have HVGA screens, that's treated as "standard def". When the iPad came out, developers had a huge new screen to play with, so they enhanced their art assets to make use of the space, and called them HD, XL, "for iPad" and such. When the iPhone4 came out, everyone stuck with the HD/etc moniker which results in a little confusion over whether it's for iPad or not. (Nonetheless, the iPad can play SD apps just fine either pixel-by-pixel or "2x" (pixel-doubling) mode, and I expect iPhone4 apps work in the larger area automatically).
As for iPad's "meh" resolution, the sad thing is, a lot of laptops aren't much better - 1366x768 on a 15" screen? When 1024x768 on the iPad's 10" screen looks kinda crummy, 1366x768 on a laptop with a 15" screen is positively lousy. (Laptop manufacturers, in the race to the bottom, skimp on graphics and displays)
What do you do to protect your employees interests in not having their own data annihilated by accident?
Also, are you expecting employees to take work with them, using their own devices; or is the company willing to bare the costs of either providing a device or the work not being done?
It would seem most unusual to me for an employer to require their employees to provide expensive equipment for company use, and with the agreement that the company may treat it as its own.
Simple - don't give company access to your personal phone.
If the company wants you to have mobile email, they can pay for it themselves - after all, you're just as likely to not have a smartphone as to have one, so if the employer wants you to have one, they can provide it. I don't see why I should pay for a data plan on my phone that my employer can eat into. What - I went with a 100MB plan and you sent me 200MB of email? I'm not paying the extra $500 that usually costs.
The usual reason why personal iPhones and such are being connected to company networks is simple - the employee wishes to have their email (or needs to have it) and doesn't want the company standard blackberry, or to carry two phones, or other reason. Of course, most companies balk at using personal equipment connected to the corporate networks, either. Still, if you have to have email, either take the company hardware and deal with that issue (better) or use your own hardware and deal with remote wipe (worse option). Most people prefer carrying around just their iPhone instead of iPhone+Blackberry, though.
I recall this article that hypothetically starts by using the BIOS extension ROM function to hook into GRUB and modify it, then the modified GRUB loads and patches the kernel to host a rootkit, then runs that.
So instead of a smart peripheral with onboard processor and firmware, the dumb ones are affected as well (which only requires the BIOS extension ROM interface).
Even though BIOS is on its way out (we can't MBR-boot >2TiB drives anymore, so we have to use GPT) and EFI is on its way in, we're still stuck because EFI has similar features. Apple's video cards for Mac Pros have both BIOS extension ROMs and EFI ROMs.
I think you are underestimating your fellow man here my friend. In the UK we ditched the swipe only method a long while back in favour of chip and pin for everything. A small minority bitched, but just got on with it as the benefits are obvious enough for the minor inconvenience of having to remember four digits. If you added another small layer of security to the existing chip + pin method I suspect the public reaction would be largely the same - a minority will complain, but then everyone will just get on with business as usual. Just like how when they made wearing seatbelts mandatory there was an outcry, but now its just so natural people don't even think about it.
Have they fixed the idiotic security issue with chip+PIN yet? You know, the one where the chip verifies the PIN? I remember a story where it turns out during PIN verification, the chip sends the reader an "OK" value (0x90, I believe?) if the PIN is OK and the transaction goes through. No, the bank's not checking your PIN at all - it's all done on the card you have. Which means anyone who can clone it doesn't need a PIN.
Which is a huge problem because you're liable for any charges made via chip+PIN, fraudulent or not.
That's why banks took it up with great abandon - it costs them less , and screws the customer even more. All the other security devices? Costs banks and doesn't give them any benefit at all over the status quo. If only running a bank was easier - someone could clean house by making a more security-conscious bank, which looks out for their customer's interests...
Yeah, but SSDs have more CPU overhead than HDs. If you are running something that doesn't do a lot of disk I/O it may be that you would be better off with an HD.
[Citation needed]
Current-gen SSDs don't have the high-overhead found in those released even as recent as a year ago.
Actually, SSDs have the same overhead as a hard disk. Even those of a year ago - it's all SATA anyhow. It's just that you're completing I/O operations so much faster on an SSD that the CPU is busier because it can get more stuff done - it's not wasting time waiting for the disk.
If you need to seek 10,000 random blocks and you have a 1GHz processor, a hard disk will take under 100 seconds to do it (most hard drives have sub-10ms seek times, which lets you do just over 100 random I/O operations a second). So any processing you do per block is distributed over those 100 seconds, and the CPU is idle the rest of the time (or doing something else).
A decent SSD would complete those operations in about a second, maybe 2-5 for the lousier ones. Thus the CPU is busier since it's doing in a few seconds what it used to do in over a minute.
CPU utilization during an random block seek test isn't a valid metric because it's easily doing nearly 100 times more work because rhe results come in that much faster. If you really want to measure it properly, you need to do, say, a million block reads and time not only how long that takes and how much CPU time was spent doing those. It's just that the hard drive has amortized it over a longer period of time that the utilization appears lower. The SSD can work much faster so the utilization is higher but the CPU time actually used is the same.
The point here is, that the factory producing these chips would still have to handle the problematic material. Recently, a factory in Hungary demonstrated why this is a bad idea: Hungary: Toxic red sludge has reached the Danube.
Making electronics tends to involve using some very hazardous substances. If it wasn't for the fact that the quantities involved are so miniscule, IC manufacturing would be considered a very hazardous occupation equivalent to some of worst industries around. Everyone thinks electronics is clean and safe because you see everyone in bunny suits in very clean facilities, but it really isn't.
Anyhow, arsenic is used in a lot of places - Gallium-Arsenide (GaAs) is a very common semiconductor. I believe it is commonly used in LEDs and semiconductor lasers.
And the biggest problem we have is the Earth's reserves of Indium are running out, so this may be DOA simply because we don't have the raw materials anymore. (Indium-Tin-Oxide, ITO, is used to make LCDs and touch screens - it's the transparent but electrically conductive material in these products). People are trying to find alternatives to ITO before we run out, though, but still.
And I believe RoHS doesn't apply because it's not readily exposed to the user. Lead used to be in solder, which was handled by people touching circuit boards and such, and the arsenic was used to make glass for LCDs and such, another item users handle. But the vast majority of people don't ever touch whatever tiny amount of arsenic is used inside the chip or even get close - there's packaging and other materials in the way. Otherwise LEDs would be banned.
My HTPC uses my ATI card as the soundcard - HDMI audio. Which is nice because it does support the necessary protected path audio so I can play my blu-rays and send the Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio over HDMI.
My laptop has a USB dongle that encodes 5.1 audio into a DTS or DD stream so I can play games with surround. Again, not likely something to have onboard anymore (the old nVidia chipsets used to have a DD encoder).
And there's also the music (though usually they go for Firewire or USB interfaces?) angle where they need low-latency and a bunch of interfaces (MIDI, multichannel audio, etc).
Discrete sound cards are still useful in niche areas - HTPCs with HDMI out, getting 5.1 without a ton of analog cables (using a digital path), and low-latency/high-quality music uses. But for the general population, they're pretty much dead except for the hardcore gamer that wants to get an extra.1 FPS because their soundcard offloads the 3D sound mixing. Maybe the only other area may be to the purist who wants better DACs than the cheap crap they put on onboard audio, though they would probably just use a digital output in some way.
The main reason to use ZFS over the other ones, even in cases where the features are the same is that ZFS is more widely available. Admittedly, it's far from universal, but right now it's officially supported in more than one OS. I'm not aware of a filesystem that provides similar functionality to ZFS which is more widely available.
Actually, I've run into this problem, not with ZFS (haven't used it), but with other filesystems, on Linux only. It seems not all filesystems are truly endian-aware, so moving a USB disk created on a big-endian system and moving it to a little endian system results in a non-working filesystem. Had to actually go and use that system to mount the disk.
Somewhat annoying if you want to pull a RAID array our of a Linux-running big-endian system in the hopes that you can recover the data... only to find out it was using XFS or other non-endian-friendly FS and basically not be able to get at the data...
hm, what about using some simple LED light that would act as a button for Kinect? but, I think Kinect is too complex and it probably 'slows down' CPU due to processing. and lag is probably unavoidable.
Uh, why so complex?
Even with Kinect you can use a regular controller. Existing technology that works, and both work simultaneously. Less lag, less specialized equipment required (you already have a controller).
That's the thing with Kinect - it's not just for motion games, but it can be used to enhance non-motion games as well. Move can't do this as you need the glowing ball. Wii can do it as well, but in a limited fashion.
Examples: 1) You're playing your FPS and hiding behind a wall. How about physically leaning over to peer around it? 2) You're playing an arcade flight sim - your physical movements may alter the movements of the ship on screen - perhaps you're trying to avoid that missile coming at you and you instinctively lean in the opposite direction. Won't it be neat if the game actually responded to that? 3) Ditto platformers - who hasn't raised their controller or tilted it in an attempt to possibly influence the results of a jump or to squeeze into a hard to reach area? Again, won't it be neat if the game would respond?
This is its potential - besides motion games, it can also be used to enhance regular controller-based games.
About the biggest issue with Kinect I've seen is the store demos. People are used to moving their arms, but not their legs or their whole body, and a lot of games take advantage of leg movement and whole body movement.
Please reply to what the GP actually posted. Their bible quote points out that eventually *everyone* will have to have the "mark" to do transactions. There eventually will be no opting out. You're better off not replying if you aren't going to read what the person whote that you are replying directly to.
Or we could say it already happened, if we take the "mark" to be credit. To participate in modern society, one has to have a credit history. It's very difficult to live a cash-only life - things like buying a house often require borrowing money (there aren't too many people who can drop the cash to buy a house - and if you can, you probably are smart enough to figure out that it can be more lucrative to keep the cash in investments and borrow the amount). So you need a mortgage, and lenders often jack up the interest rate to those without credit histories.
And with employers wanting access to credit histories, as well as insurers and the like, well, it seems to live one must have a credit history.
In the UK, the loser in such cases is often forced to pay the costs of both parties by default.
Which is how it should be. Why should an innocent person be bankrupted by legal fees just because some greedy infantile pathetic idiot sued him when he didn't do anything that deserved suing?
Which fails if you're so vastly outgunned. You get sued by $MOVIE_STUDIO for pirating some movies, and they walk into the court with 3 lawyers billing out at $1000/hr. All you've got is a lawyer working on the cheap. You win, they pay the piddly $100/hr your lawyer charged. They win, you not only pay the $100M you owe, but the $4M in billable hours (4 lawyers * 1000 hours each) as well. And in the US (and probalby many other places), he who has money wins. And attempts to appeal that fail, well your $100M may turn into $1M, but now you've racked up another $500k in legal fees (125 hours each), so you are stuck with $4.5M in legal fees with $1M settlement. And it may get appealed again.
Loser pays only works if the amount paid is the lower of the two bills. You lose and your lawyer was working pro-bono? Zip for them! Then again, it can lead to people trying to sue companies and the company then uses a lowballed one for defense. Sure they lose, but if you spent $250/hr on a lawyer and the company spent $100/hr, well, you just lost $150/hr out of your settlement, which can mean you win in principle, but you end up owing your lawyer money.
You can make it asset-based, but that has its own issues as well.
There's no sane way to do it equally amongst all parties that won't end up benefitting companies with money in some way. Perhaps if judges exercise discretion - in cases where there's a vast gulf between the plaintiff and defendant in ability to pay, the one with less means to pay (e.g., corp vs. person) doesn't pay winner's lawyer fees. But if it goes the other way, then not only are fees paid by loser (they could afford their team of lawyers, they can afford one more), but a punitive amount is awarded for trying to outgun the proceedings. But that puts too much sense into the justice system.
Is exactly the same battle as Apple vs. Microsoft a decade ago. And Apple will lose again for the same reasons: Inflated price, locked platform, and developer exclusion. Woz sees the obvious. Jobs apparently does not.
Is Apple losing? Apple's in a really great spot - they're raking in cash. So is Microsoft, except that Apple is moving far less units than Dell, HP, Acer and other hardware manufacturers, so their actual costs per sale is lower and margins are higher.
They also only have 2 iPhone models out that's outselling individual Android phones out there. The only reason Android phones are "winning" is the sheer number of models of Android phones out there. They also rake in close to 50% of mobile industry profits, despite only having anywhere from 1-2% total mobile marketshare. All the other bigger companies (LG, Samsung, Nokia, RIM) are scrapping over the remaining half, despite accounting for over 90% of units shipped.
Yeah, Apple is losing. Apple's not participating in the race to the bottom, instead letting Dell, HP, Acer, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia compete against each other driving their margins and profits down.
Apple in 10 years? Well, I don't know. Just like I don't know where Microsoft willb e in 10 years. Or what Android will be in 10 years. Hell, in the past 10 years, we saw the rise and fall of PalmOS, and the rise and fall of Windows Mobile. Symbian's a bit longer lived. Android and iOS may not even exist in the next 5 years.
Sure, out of the box it's not perfect. But it's easily customizable (as in, built-in settings) to make it better: larger icons, fonts, etc. (as a proportion of the screen) and the like. At the resolution this netbook runs, it should be quite usable.
Think single-mouse-button, and the mocking we all of Macs because of it.
That's what we have on a touchscreen - a single mouse button design, and wierd hacks to make it actually support middle and right-clicks. Or just right-click, because that's fairly important in the Windows UI experience - it's actually very difficult to use Windows without having right-click available (and it's really clumsy).
And then the apps aren't optimized for such experiences as well. Hell, even the Windows 7 explorer has stuff hidden wher eyou have to shift-right-click or alt-right-click, making life even more fun. And many other Microsoft apps do the same thing - stuff hidden in right-click menus unless a modifier key is held down.
MacOS X is also clumsy, but at least you can live without the right-click (the single mouse button forces developers to not hide functionality in context menus because they won't be discoverable and right-clicking isn't a common experience).
And then there's the apps themselves - most of which are designed for a mouse input device, not a touch based input, so you can easily stick things in menus and require drags, right-clicks, and all sorts of fancy things because the interaction takes place via a keyboard and mouse. Taps take longer and cascading menus or long drags are a huge pain.
It seems like a pretty flaky way to ruin the guy, considering how much difficulty victims have in securing a conviction where there has been a rape (either because it's difficult to collect evidence or because a lot of the time it comes down to one person's word against another).
It's not about the actual conviction or acquittal in the end. It's all about the court of public opinion.
If you're accused of having sex with children, rape, or anything, you're guilty. It doesn't matter if the accusations are false, or if the accuser had an ulterior motive, it ruins your life, period. If you're a teacher, you're especially vulnerable - any student with a grudge can easily ensure you'll have a hard time finding a job in your field by accusing you of raping them. Doesn't matter if you have a solid alibi, or there's no way it could've happened. To parents, you're a tainted dirty person who rapes kids.
Sexual assault cases are more emotional than logical. Hell, even if it's plainly obvious there's no way the accused could've done it, the other side immediately will say "he lied".
It's the unfortunate truth these days. Assange will be known as "the guy who raped that kid" moreso than "the Wikileaks guy".
There's nothing random about blocking port 25, and no one is doing it for shits and giggles. I'm all for ISPs allowing the port to be opened for a customer where they request it, but seriously, as long as they provide a reliable SMTP server that you can use as a relay, the cost to the end user is almost nil.
Use port 587 with SMTP AUTH. Gets around outgoing 25 blocks. It's not "open" in that you have to authenticate with the SMTP server so you're accountable for traffic using your credentials. If you colo you can set it up on your colo box, or I'm sure webhosts would love to sell you that service as well. Most SMTP servers these days support it, and you can block relaying and incoming 25 traffic.
Having read through the terms and conditions here, it looks like basically Amazon will pay you a token amount if the movie is made, whilst keeping all the millions for themselves.
Just another parasitic middleman in the movie industry. The very last thing the movie industry needs is more middlemen. If you work in the movie industry you will already be very familiar with this type of scam run by all sorts of people and all sorts of websites. As well as many other similar scams run for actors, directors and other movie professionals, or hopefuls.
Having Amazon now join in, adds an air of legitimacy to what is nothing more than a way of scamming writers. It may result in a break for a few amateur screenwriters. However with a bit of research, perseverance, and hard work, those same screenwriters could get a MUCH better deal for a viable screenplay.
If you're an established screenwriter, you probably* won't use this. You already have the industry contacts to submit your screenplays to the big studios automatically.
If you're NOT and established screenwriter, this can be a godsend. Hollywood rarely gives time to non-established people, just like book publishers rarely give time to new authors. They're a dime a dozen, and the vast majority of works being submitted are crap. In fact, unless you've already got industry experience AND have a track record, the big guys won't even consider you. (And how do you get a track record for good movies without being able to make good movies?).
The only exception is if you know someone already and can get in via the networking backchannel rather than cold-calling.
Amazon's just trying to be another player here, and they're letting people submit screenplays to them that the big guys won't even return your calls for. The reason for middlemen is to keep every idiot with an idea from ramming down the front gates every minute with their "million dollar story idea". These middlemen effectively filter things so the studios get the ones that'll probably make them the big bucks. And there's nothing stopping anyone from making the movie themselves and cutting out the middlemen - just get a few investors together, make the movie, and release it. There are plenty of indie film festivals who'll show your movie, BitTorrent, YouTube, etc.
* - if you're a screenwriter whose movies bomb, you'll be blackballed as well. Amazon could offer a way to redeem yourself if you get something good.
Android will win by marketshare, which is percentage of phones running the OS. Of course, Apple doesn't feel threatened - and it makes sense when you think about it. Apple has 2 models of iPhones out there now - iPhone 4, and iPhone 3GS. Android devices - well, Samsung, Sony-Ericsson, Motorola, HTC, they seem to easily have a dozen different models each. Plus all the other no-name brands out there releasing Android phones without Google (or pirating it). So you probably have over 50+ models of Android phones out there, compared to 2 from Apple. Of course Android phones will outsell the iPHone.
Now, should Apple worry? Probably not, because they're raking in the money. Profit wise, Apple commands a huge chunk (nearly half) of total mobile phone industry profits (including dumbphones), while RIM, Nokia, Samsung and LG dominate the remaining chunk. By handsets sold, Nokia, RIM, Samsung and LG dominate the charts, while Apple just has a tiny sliver. It doesn't matter that Apple is in #3 or #4 (after Symbian, RIM and Android) - as long as they're raking in the cash.
And I'm talking phones only - ignoring Android running tablets and multimedia players, and iPod Touches and iPads. The numbers that way are too vague.
Also, carriers LOVE Android. Face it - Sprint loves putting its NASCAR apps preloaded, Verizon loves its V-cast stuff, etc - all the "value-added" software to make carriers more money. Carriers hate the iPhone - what sane control-hungry corporation wants to give up complete control of the handset (hardware AND software) to Apple, and not only that, pay Apple for the priviledge of carrying the iPhone? When instead they can carry Android phones, and tell HTC, Samsung, and Motorola to shove it until they cripple certain features, preload crapware, and all the other stuff?
P.S. - I use an iPhone because it's free of carrier control. I want an Android phone, but giving up 3G isn't an option, and I want straight-from-Google updates. Hoping the Nexus Two will satisfy.
First, there should not be one company deciding. We should harness the free market and build a system that takes inputs from whatever security feeds users subscribe to and weight those security feeds based upon the end user's preferences. Also, we should be able to override the choices for any given case. If we really want to run some software but our security feeds think it is malware, we should be able to do it. Heck, there are valid reasons, such as research, for wanting to run malware. It should just be a very advanced setting that makes it perfectly clear to the end user that they're handing complete control of their device to some other party, forever.
Bzzt, you fail. You're back to square one.
Remember all those jailbroken iPhones getting hacked because OpenSSH was installed with default passwords? Want to remember why? Joe User was just following blindly some tutorial on the web - "Open Cydia, search for OpenSSH and install opensshd, then run PuTTY and log in with root/alpine". UAC won't stop them, jailbreaking doesn't stop them, etc. The users will blindly follow any instruction to get what they want. Any roadblocks they will bypass.
Your "method of bypass" will result in the following steps: To install SuperCoolApp, you have to do the following: 1) Run SuperCoolApp Installer 2) When it pops up the "SECURITY WARNING - This app is malware" dialog, click "Yes" (or however other method to bypass protection). This version of SuperCoolApp has been falsely detected as malware - there is no virus in SuperCoolApp, and never will be if you get it from us. 3) Wait for install to finish. 4) Run SuperCoolApp!
After all, how many of those XP "This driver is not signed!" dialogs have we clicked "OK" to instead of "Stop Installation"? The manuals say to click OK, and we do.
It's already pretty easy to do on Linux to get someone who has too little time on their hands to download software, reconfigure their Linux box to be insecure, and have them pwned. Just tell them enough how to add your repository of Linux packages and they'll blindly follow your instructions and even download whatever trojans you provide.
It is a pretty unsolvable problem. UAC and everything is great for those on the ball and understand when things should happen (UAC shouldn't popup in most cases, and if it suddenly does on some random file off the Internet, maybe it's best to click Cancel), but it's otherwise just another step the user goes through to get some program running. Most don't even know that they've just opened a huge security hole on their computer. And they'll keep doing it.
Facebook wants all your messages so they can mine them for any possible personal information and sell it to the highest bidders. Is anyone surprised?
And when that doesn't work, they'll adjust their privacy settings and boom, your "private" conversations will be public for all - just google search what your boss really thinks of you!
In the meantime, just have one of your mutual friends forward stuff to you. (There is no privacy on facebook if unless it's all marked "Only Me". Because otherwise it's like email - it can be forwarded and reposted and the like by your friends. And we all know how well those "email DRM" things work.).
It's fine, as long as you never ever want to transcode it.
I've never understood why people are so opposed to transcoding music, yet they'll happily transcode video (and the associated audio track).
I mean, they'll take something in h.264, transcode it to WebM and deem it good. Or more commonly, MPEG-2 into h.264 or ASP, and the audio goes from MPEG audio to MP3 or something. Or even h.264 to h.264 (downscaled). Or even whatever YouTube uses for audio. YouTube especially since it gets played back on anything from phones to HDTVs with A/V receivers attached.
I know the eyes aren't as good as the ears, but they'll happy transcode the audio as well - MPEG audio to MP3 or AAC, or Dolby Digital/DTS to MP3 or AAC. Though at least the higher quality rips tend to preserve the bitstream data.
I no longer buy new games since Sony blocked new games to work on PS3s running Linux (I'm stuck in firmware 3.15). Take that, you greedy overlords!
I've also got a 3.15 PS3, but I'm thinking of upgrading it to 3.41 so I can use the jailbreak. Then I can run backups, which I think would be far more valuable than Linux, and would be a more effective protest mechanism, albeit a bit more dangerous one.
Hell, it's got Sony so worried they've gone after customers who bought the jailbreak. And since I'm cut off from PSN, oh well. I'll play with my friends on Xbox360... to which I'm paying money for. Ah well, Sony doesn't want my money, I'll give it to Microsoft!
Unfortunately, a standardized plug does diddly if you don't standardize how to charge.
There are a few billion ways you can charge from USB. There's the good old dumb "assume 500mA" method - where you assume you can draw 500mA from USB. Works fine for PCs and their chargers, but not so much if your USB host is power-limited.
Then there's the USB charging spec - where the charger shorts D+ and D- lines, and the device assumes it can draw the appropriate amount of current as the charger it comes with - 500mA, 800mA, 1A, 2A. Again, no standard on how to pick the current, so a device is free to draw as much as possible.
There's the Apple method, where resistors on D+ and D- lines tell the device how much power the charger can provide to prevent drawing too much power (iPods start at 100mA until enumerated at 500mA or more, or connected to a charger where it can select 500mA, 1A or 2A).
There's also using the ID line with resistors that identify the device - an ADC converts the voltage to identify the accessory (charger, car kit, high-current charger, etc).
There's also the USB high power spec, but that's for USB hosts that can provide more power.
Even worse, I've seen some devices destroy the charger because they assume the manufacturer's charger and draw more current than the charger can provide.
Fun fun fun.
Anyhow, at least for iPhone users, you can buy iPhones in Canada which are fully unlocked from Apple stores in Canada. I've seen a number of US people come to Canada to buy unlocked iPhones.
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Hell, don't discount Apple either - there's a pretty wide selection of more casual games in the App Store that are pretty good, and most aren't a huge investment. After all, Angry Birds for the iPhone is still 99 cents. And there's plenty more talked-about games in there where the goal is strategy. The App Store seems to have brought out every indie developer out there.
There's probably a few more for Android as well.
And the Xbox360's Indie area has a few gems to it too. NOt sure about Sony since I don't go on PSN anymore since I refuse to update my PS3 (I might update to 3.41 to jailbreak so I can buy the disc and play a jailbroken version of Heavy Rain 2).
And when those terminator genes don't work, Monsanto sues the farmer next door for patent infringement because his corn cross-bred with Monsanto corn. It's the perfect scam - get one farm using your corn, and it infects every farm around it, so you sue to get more license agreements.
Ah, but there's already a supply of Android apps out there. Supply of MeeGo apps is a bit lower. If you're running a store, you might as well have something existing devs can submit apps they already have rather than write new ones.
Though, this proliferation of Android app stores has me wondering if it'll devolve into what happened with phone java apps - each dev has to negotiate with each carrier to carry their java app. Right now, most devs want the Android marketplace to get most Android devices out there, but as more Android devices get released without Google's apps and such, these alternative app stores might gain prominence.
(I'm still waiting for the Installuous app "store"...)
It's a silly naming convention people call iPad and iPhone4 (with retina support) apps. It's not high-def, just like HD Radio is not high-def (it's "hybrid digital" because it uses subcarriers on the analog FM channel). It is, though "higher definition". Other app developers use "XL" and "for iPad" to differentiate.
There are three standard resolutions to iOS - HVGA (320x480), DVGA (double VGA, iPhone 4 "retina", 640x960), and XGA (1024x768). Since the vast majority of iOS devices out there have HVGA screens, that's treated as "standard def". When the iPad came out, developers had a huge new screen to play with, so they enhanced their art assets to make use of the space, and called them HD, XL, "for iPad" and such. When the iPhone4 came out, everyone stuck with the HD/etc moniker which results in a little confusion over whether it's for iPad or not. (Nonetheless, the iPad can play SD apps just fine either pixel-by-pixel or "2x" (pixel-doubling) mode, and I expect iPhone4 apps work in the larger area automatically).
As for iPad's "meh" resolution, the sad thing is, a lot of laptops aren't much better - 1366x768 on a 15" screen? When 1024x768 on the iPad's 10" screen looks kinda crummy, 1366x768 on a laptop with a 15" screen is positively lousy. (Laptop manufacturers, in the race to the bottom, skimp on graphics and displays)
Simple - don't give company access to your personal phone.
If the company wants you to have mobile email, they can pay for it themselves - after all, you're just as likely to not have a smartphone as to have one, so if the employer wants you to have one, they can provide it. I don't see why I should pay for a data plan on my phone that my employer can eat into. What - I went with a 100MB plan and you sent me 200MB of email? I'm not paying the extra $500 that usually costs.
The usual reason why personal iPhones and such are being connected to company networks is simple - the employee wishes to have their email (or needs to have it) and doesn't want the company standard blackberry, or to carry two phones, or other reason. Of course, most companies balk at using personal equipment connected to the corporate networks, either. Still, if you have to have email, either take the company hardware and deal with that issue (better) or use your own hardware and deal with remote wipe (worse option). Most people prefer carrying around just their iPhone instead of iPhone+Blackberry, though.
I recall this article that hypothetically starts by using the BIOS extension ROM function to hook into GRUB and modify it, then the modified GRUB loads and patches the kernel to host a rootkit, then runs that.
So instead of a smart peripheral with onboard processor and firmware, the dumb ones are affected as well (which only requires the BIOS extension ROM interface).
Even though BIOS is on its way out (we can't MBR-boot >2TiB drives anymore, so we have to use GPT) and EFI is on its way in, we're still stuck because EFI has similar features. Apple's video cards for Mac Pros have both BIOS extension ROMs and EFI ROMs.
Have they fixed the idiotic security issue with chip+PIN yet? You know, the one where the chip verifies the PIN? I remember a story where it turns out during PIN verification, the chip sends the reader an "OK" value (0x90, I believe?) if the PIN is OK and the transaction goes through. No, the bank's not checking your PIN at all - it's all done on the card you have. Which means anyone who can clone it doesn't need a PIN.
Which is a huge problem because you're liable for any charges made via chip+PIN, fraudulent or not.
That's why banks took it up with great abandon - it costs them less , and screws the customer even more. All the other security devices? Costs banks and doesn't give them any benefit at all over the status quo. If only running a bank was easier - someone could clean house by making a more security-conscious bank, which looks out for their customer's interests...
Actually, SSDs have the same overhead as a hard disk. Even those of a year ago - it's all SATA anyhow. It's just that you're completing I/O operations so much faster on an SSD that the CPU is busier because it can get more stuff done - it's not wasting time waiting for the disk.
If you need to seek 10,000 random blocks and you have a 1GHz processor, a hard disk will take under 100 seconds to do it (most hard drives have sub-10ms seek times, which lets you do just over 100 random I/O operations a second). So any processing you do per block is distributed over those 100 seconds, and the CPU is idle the rest of the time (or doing something else).
A decent SSD would complete those operations in about a second, maybe 2-5 for the lousier ones. Thus the CPU is busier since it's doing in a few seconds what it used to do in over a minute.
CPU utilization during an random block seek test isn't a valid metric because it's easily doing nearly 100 times more work because rhe results come in that much faster. If you really want to measure it properly, you need to do, say, a million block reads and time not only how long that takes and how much CPU time was spent doing those. It's just that the hard drive has amortized it over a longer period of time that the utilization appears lower. The SSD can work much faster so the utilization is higher but the CPU time actually used is the same.
Making electronics tends to involve using some very hazardous substances. If it wasn't for the fact that the quantities involved are so miniscule, IC manufacturing would be considered a very hazardous occupation equivalent to some of worst industries around. Everyone thinks electronics is clean and safe because you see everyone in bunny suits in very clean facilities, but it really isn't.
Anyhow, arsenic is used in a lot of places - Gallium-Arsenide (GaAs) is a very common semiconductor. I believe it is commonly used in LEDs and semiconductor lasers.
And the biggest problem we have is the Earth's reserves of Indium are running out, so this may be DOA simply because we don't have the raw materials anymore. (Indium-Tin-Oxide, ITO, is used to make LCDs and touch screens - it's the transparent but electrically conductive material in these products). People are trying to find alternatives to ITO before we run out, though, but still.
And I believe RoHS doesn't apply because it's not readily exposed to the user. Lead used to be in solder, which was handled by people touching circuit boards and such, and the arsenic was used to make glass for LCDs and such, another item users handle. But the vast majority of people don't ever touch whatever tiny amount of arsenic is used inside the chip or even get close - there's packaging and other materials in the way. Otherwise LEDs would be banned.
My HTPC uses my ATI card as the soundcard - HDMI audio. Which is nice because it does support the necessary protected path audio so I can play my blu-rays and send the Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio over HDMI.
My laptop has a USB dongle that encodes 5.1 audio into a DTS or DD stream so I can play games with surround. Again, not likely something to have onboard anymore (the old nVidia chipsets used to have a DD encoder).
And there's also the music (though usually they go for Firewire or USB interfaces?) angle where they need low-latency and a bunch of interfaces (MIDI, multichannel audio, etc).
Discrete sound cards are still useful in niche areas - HTPCs with HDMI out, getting 5.1 without a ton of analog cables (using a digital path), and low-latency/high-quality music uses. But for the general population, they're pretty much dead except for the hardcore gamer that wants to get an extra .1 FPS because their soundcard offloads the 3D sound mixing. Maybe the only other area may be to the purist who wants better DACs than the cheap crap they put on onboard audio, though they would probably just use a digital output in some way.
Actually, I've run into this problem, not with ZFS (haven't used it), but with other filesystems, on Linux only. It seems not all filesystems are truly endian-aware, so moving a USB disk created on a big-endian system and moving it to a little endian system results in a non-working filesystem. Had to actually go and use that system to mount the disk.
Somewhat annoying if you want to pull a RAID array our of a Linux-running big-endian system in the hopes that you can recover the data... only to find out it was using XFS or other non-endian-friendly FS and basically not be able to get at the data...
Uh, why so complex?
Even with Kinect you can use a regular controller. Existing technology that works, and both work simultaneously. Less lag, less specialized equipment required (you already have a controller).
That's the thing with Kinect - it's not just for motion games, but it can be used to enhance non-motion games as well. Move can't do this as you need the glowing ball. Wii can do it as well, but in a limited fashion.
Examples:
1) You're playing your FPS and hiding behind a wall. How about physically leaning over to peer around it?
2) You're playing an arcade flight sim - your physical movements may alter the movements of the ship on screen - perhaps you're trying to avoid that missile coming at you and you instinctively lean in the opposite direction. Won't it be neat if the game actually responded to that?
3) Ditto platformers - who hasn't raised their controller or tilted it in an attempt to possibly influence the results of a jump or to squeeze into a hard to reach area? Again, won't it be neat if the game would respond?
This is its potential - besides motion games, it can also be used to enhance regular controller-based games.
About the biggest issue with Kinect I've seen is the store demos. People are used to moving their arms, but not their legs or their whole body, and a lot of games take advantage of leg movement and whole body movement.
Or we could say it already happened, if we take the "mark" to be credit. To participate in modern society, one has to have a credit history. It's very difficult to live a cash-only life - things like buying a house often require borrowing money (there aren't too many people who can drop the cash to buy a house - and if you can, you probably are smart enough to figure out that it can be more lucrative to keep the cash in investments and borrow the amount). So you need a mortgage, and lenders often jack up the interest rate to those without credit histories.
And with employers wanting access to credit histories, as well as insurers and the like, well, it seems to live one must have a credit history.
Which fails if you're so vastly outgunned. You get sued by $MOVIE_STUDIO for pirating some movies, and they walk into the court with 3 lawyers billing out at $1000/hr. All you've got is a lawyer working on the cheap. You win, they pay the piddly $100/hr your lawyer charged. They win, you not only pay the $100M you owe, but the $4M in billable hours (4 lawyers * 1000 hours each) as well. And in the US (and probalby many other places), he who has money wins. And attempts to appeal that fail, well your $100M may turn into $1M, but now you've racked up another $500k in legal fees (125 hours each), so you are stuck with $4.5M in legal fees with $1M settlement. And it may get appealed again.
Loser pays only works if the amount paid is the lower of the two bills. You lose and your lawyer was working pro-bono? Zip for them! Then again, it can lead to people trying to sue companies and the company then uses a lowballed one for defense. Sure they lose, but if you spent $250/hr on a lawyer and the company spent $100/hr, well, you just lost $150/hr out of your settlement, which can mean you win in principle, but you end up owing your lawyer money.
You can make it asset-based, but that has its own issues as well.
There's no sane way to do it equally amongst all parties that won't end up benefitting companies with money in some way. Perhaps if judges exercise discretion - in cases where there's a vast gulf between the plaintiff and defendant in ability to pay, the one with less means to pay (e.g., corp vs. person) doesn't pay winner's lawyer fees. But if it goes the other way, then not only are fees paid by loser (they could afford their team of lawyers, they can afford one more), but a punitive amount is awarded for trying to outgun the proceedings. But that puts too much sense into the justice system.
Is Apple losing? Apple's in a really great spot - they're raking in cash. So is Microsoft, except that Apple is moving far less units than Dell, HP, Acer and other hardware manufacturers, so their actual costs per sale is lower and margins are higher.
They also only have 2 iPhone models out that's outselling individual Android phones out there. The only reason Android phones are "winning" is the sheer number of models of Android phones out there. They also rake in close to 50% of mobile industry profits, despite only having anywhere from 1-2% total mobile marketshare. All the other bigger companies (LG, Samsung, Nokia, RIM) are scrapping over the remaining half, despite accounting for over 90% of units shipped.
Yeah, Apple is losing. Apple's not participating in the race to the bottom, instead letting Dell, HP, Acer, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia compete against each other driving their margins and profits down.
Apple in 10 years? Well, I don't know. Just like I don't know where Microsoft willb e in 10 years. Or what Android will be in 10 years. Hell, in the past 10 years, we saw the rise and fall of PalmOS, and the rise and fall of Windows Mobile. Symbian's a bit longer lived. Android and iOS may not even exist in the next 5 years.
Think single-mouse-button, and the mocking we all of Macs because of it.
That's what we have on a touchscreen - a single mouse button design, and wierd hacks to make it actually support middle and right-clicks. Or just right-click, because that's fairly important in the Windows UI experience - it's actually very difficult to use Windows without having right-click available (and it's really clumsy).
And then the apps aren't optimized for such experiences as well. Hell, even the Windows 7 explorer has stuff hidden wher eyou have to shift-right-click or alt-right-click, making life even more fun. And many other Microsoft apps do the same thing - stuff hidden in right-click menus unless a modifier key is held down.
MacOS X is also clumsy, but at least you can live without the right-click (the single mouse button forces developers to not hide functionality in context menus because they won't be discoverable and right-clicking isn't a common experience).
And then there's the apps themselves - most of which are designed for a mouse input device, not a touch based input, so you can easily stick things in menus and require drags, right-clicks, and all sorts of fancy things because the interaction takes place via a keyboard and mouse. Taps take longer and cascading menus or long drags are a huge pain.
It's not about the actual conviction or acquittal in the end. It's all about the court of public opinion.
If you're accused of having sex with children, rape, or anything, you're guilty. It doesn't matter if the accusations are false, or if the accuser had an ulterior motive, it ruins your life, period. If you're a teacher, you're especially vulnerable - any student with a grudge can easily ensure you'll have a hard time finding a job in your field by accusing you of raping them. Doesn't matter if you have a solid alibi, or there's no way it could've happened. To parents, you're a tainted dirty person who rapes kids.
Sexual assault cases are more emotional than logical. Hell, even if it's plainly obvious there's no way the accused could've done it, the other side immediately will say "he lied".
It's the unfortunate truth these days. Assange will be known as "the guy who raped that kid" moreso than "the Wikileaks guy".
Use port 587 with SMTP AUTH. Gets around outgoing 25 blocks. It's not "open" in that you have to authenticate with the SMTP server so you're accountable for traffic using your credentials. If you colo you can set it up on your colo box, or I'm sure webhosts would love to sell you that service as well. Most SMTP servers these days support it, and you can block relaying and incoming 25 traffic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMTP_Authentication
If you're an established screenwriter, you probably* won't use this. You already have the industry contacts to submit your screenplays to the big studios automatically.
If you're NOT and established screenwriter, this can be a godsend. Hollywood rarely gives time to non-established people, just like book publishers rarely give time to new authors. They're a dime a dozen, and the vast majority of works being submitted are crap. In fact, unless you've already got industry experience AND have a track record, the big guys won't even consider you. (And how do you get a track record for good movies without being able to make good movies?).
The only exception is if you know someone already and can get in via the networking backchannel rather than cold-calling.
Amazon's just trying to be another player here, and they're letting people submit screenplays to them that the big guys won't even return your calls for. The reason for middlemen is to keep every idiot with an idea from ramming down the front gates every minute with their "million dollar story idea". These middlemen effectively filter things so the studios get the ones that'll probably make them the big bucks. And there's nothing stopping anyone from making the movie themselves and cutting out the middlemen - just get a few investors together, make the movie, and release it. There are plenty of indie film festivals who'll show your movie, BitTorrent, YouTube, etc.
* - if you're a screenwriter whose movies bomb, you'll be blackballed as well. Amazon could offer a way to redeem yourself if you get something good.
Android will win by marketshare, which is percentage of phones running the OS. Of course, Apple doesn't feel threatened - and it makes sense when you think about it. Apple has 2 models of iPhones out there now - iPhone 4, and iPhone 3GS. Android devices - well, Samsung, Sony-Ericsson, Motorola, HTC, they seem to easily have a dozen different models each. Plus all the other no-name brands out there releasing Android phones without Google (or pirating it). So you probably have over 50+ models of Android phones out there, compared to 2 from Apple. Of course Android phones will outsell the iPHone.
Now, should Apple worry? Probably not, because they're raking in the money. Profit wise, Apple commands a huge chunk (nearly half) of total mobile phone industry profits (including dumbphones), while RIM, Nokia, Samsung and LG dominate the remaining chunk. By handsets sold, Nokia, RIM, Samsung and LG dominate the charts, while Apple just has a tiny sliver. It doesn't matter that Apple is in #3 or #4 (after Symbian, RIM and Android) - as long as they're raking in the cash.
And I'm talking phones only - ignoring Android running tablets and multimedia players, and iPod Touches and iPads. The numbers that way are too vague.
Also, carriers LOVE Android. Face it - Sprint loves putting its NASCAR apps preloaded, Verizon loves its V-cast stuff, etc - all the "value-added" software to make carriers more money. Carriers hate the iPhone - what sane control-hungry corporation wants to give up complete control of the handset (hardware AND software) to Apple, and not only that, pay Apple for the priviledge of carrying the iPhone? When instead they can carry Android phones, and tell HTC, Samsung, and Motorola to shove it until they cripple certain features, preload crapware, and all the other stuff?
P.S. - I use an iPhone because it's free of carrier control. I want an Android phone, but giving up 3G isn't an option, and I want straight-from-Google updates. Hoping the Nexus Two will satisfy.
Bzzt, you fail. You're back to square one.
Remember all those jailbroken iPhones getting hacked because OpenSSH was installed with default passwords? Want to remember why? Joe User was just following blindly some tutorial on the web - "Open Cydia, search for OpenSSH and install opensshd, then run PuTTY and log in with root/alpine". UAC won't stop them, jailbreaking doesn't stop them, etc. The users will blindly follow any instruction to get what they want. Any roadblocks they will bypass.
Your "method of bypass" will result in the following steps:
To install SuperCoolApp, you have to do the following:
1) Run SuperCoolApp Installer
2) When it pops up the "SECURITY WARNING - This app is malware" dialog, click "Yes" (or however other method to bypass protection). This version of SuperCoolApp has been falsely detected as malware - there is no virus in SuperCoolApp, and never will be if you get it from us.
3) Wait for install to finish.
4) Run SuperCoolApp!
After all, how many of those XP "This driver is not signed!" dialogs have we clicked "OK" to instead of "Stop Installation"? The manuals say to click OK, and we do.
It's already pretty easy to do on Linux to get someone who has too little time on their hands to download software, reconfigure their Linux box to be insecure, and have them pwned. Just tell them enough how to add your repository of Linux packages and they'll blindly follow your instructions and even download whatever trojans you provide.
It is a pretty unsolvable problem. UAC and everything is great for those on the ball and understand when things should happen (UAC shouldn't popup in most cases, and if it suddenly does on some random file off the Internet, maybe it's best to click Cancel), but it's otherwise just another step the user goes through to get some program running. Most don't even know that they've just opened a huge security hole on their computer. And they'll keep doing it.
And when that doesn't work, they'll adjust their privacy settings and boom, your "private" conversations will be public for all - just google search what your boss really thinks of you!
In the meantime, just have one of your mutual friends forward stuff to you. (There is no privacy on facebook if unless it's all marked "Only Me". Because otherwise it's like email - it can be forwarded and reposted and the like by your friends. And we all know how well those "email DRM" things work.).
I've never understood why people are so opposed to transcoding music, yet they'll happily transcode video (and the associated audio track).
I mean, they'll take something in h.264, transcode it to WebM and deem it good. Or more commonly, MPEG-2 into h.264 or ASP, and the audio goes from MPEG audio to MP3 or something. Or even h.264 to h.264 (downscaled). Or even whatever YouTube uses for audio. YouTube especially since it gets played back on anything from phones to HDTVs with A/V receivers attached.
I know the eyes aren't as good as the ears, but they'll happy transcode the audio as well - MPEG audio to MP3 or AAC, or Dolby Digital/DTS to MP3 or AAC. Though at least the higher quality rips tend to preserve the bitstream data.
I've also got a 3.15 PS3, but I'm thinking of upgrading it to 3.41 so I can use the jailbreak. Then I can run backups, which I think would be far more valuable than Linux, and would be a more effective protest mechanism, albeit a bit more dangerous one.
Hell, it's got Sony so worried they've gone after customers who bought the jailbreak. And since I'm cut off from PSN, oh well. I'll play with my friends on Xbox360... to which I'm paying money for. Ah well, Sony doesn't want my money, I'll give it to Microsoft!
Unfortunately, a standardized plug does diddly if you don't standardize how to charge.
There are a few billion ways you can charge from USB. There's the good old dumb "assume 500mA" method - where you assume you can draw 500mA from USB. Works fine for PCs and their chargers, but not so much if your USB host is power-limited.
Then there's the USB charging spec - where the charger shorts D+ and D- lines, and the device assumes it can draw the appropriate amount of current as the charger it comes with - 500mA, 800mA, 1A, 2A. Again, no standard on how to pick the current, so a device is free to draw as much as possible.
There's the Apple method, where resistors on D+ and D- lines tell the device how much power the charger can provide to prevent drawing too much power (iPods start at 100mA until enumerated at 500mA or more, or connected to a charger where it can select 500mA, 1A or 2A).
There's also using the ID line with resistors that identify the device - an ADC converts the voltage to identify the accessory (charger, car kit, high-current charger, etc).
There's also the USB high power spec, but that's for USB hosts that can provide more power.
Even worse, I've seen some devices destroy the charger because they assume the manufacturer's charger and draw more current than the charger can provide.
Fun fun fun.
Anyhow, at least for iPhone users, you can buy iPhones in Canada which are fully unlocked from Apple stores in Canada. I've seen a number of US people come to Canada to buy unlocked iPhones.