You're showing a complete lack of understanding as to how processors are rated and sold. AMD determines they need to meet a certain quota for each model of CPU. If it works out and all of the CPUs in their 1 million unit run works flawlessly, they will maximize their profit by disabling some of them and selling them for less money to account for that market without flooding the market with their top performing part.
True, but there's also a good possibility that the your part wasn't binned to fulfill an order. Chips go through a severe set of stress tests that often exceed what will be encountered in practical use. During these tests, it may be revealed that a core doesn't function properly or well enough (it gives bad results) to qualify. All chips go through that, and that's why there's many redundant structures on a chip (to improve yields). (Sony PS3 has 7 SPUs when they build 8 on a chip, Xbox360's got 3 PowerPC cores even though it has 4, Intel disables cache lines and/or functional units, etc. etc. etc.)
So the question is, are those cores disabled because AMD had extra parts and an outstanding order they could fulfill? Or are there actually potential issues that may only be revealed under certain loads? FOr the most part, it just means a game crashes a bit more often than usual (since mission critical servers never do wierd things like this - the money saved isn't worth the potential for extra downtime), or maybe a file gets corrupted. Or worse, your disk gets corrupted.
Plus, AMD's historically been supply-bound and unable to fulfill demand for their product, so there's a potential that instead of getting a binned part, it's actually one that failed their test patterns.
And yes, you see the same behavior with flash chips - NAND flash traditionally ships with bad blocks, and the majority of those can probably be erased and used quite safely (having accidentally destroyed the bad block information before due to buggy software...), but you never can tell why it was marked bad in the first place.
I've worked for two different fast food chains as a customer service person and there is huge pressure on the staff to keep things moving fast (seconds count, statistics are everything). Most staff in these places are too young or too lazy to hide the fact that they are under huge pressure. Those vibes are going to rub off on the customer and the whole place. Frankly, if you don't make up your mind fast, you're going to really piss the staff off.
And the people behind you.
I never did understand those who mindlessly stand in line, then at the very end look at the menu and decide then. After all, you had all the time in the world in the lineup to review the menu, the current day's news, the weather around the world, etc. in the lineup, but no, only when you get to the front of the line do you act with surprise like the menu's only visible by you and then stand and think.
On the Internet though, your neighbor can easily run a "factory" by simply seeding a bunch of torrents like an asshole, using all the bandwidth.
Or by watching cats all day on Youtube...or by watching TV episodes on Hulu all day, or streaming movies through Netflix all day, or any other number of bandwith-intensive activities.
Torrent users are being targeted because they are the easiest ones to go after...what about the stay at home mom who streams Netflix and Hulu 8 hours a day, or the patent examiner who works from home and is constantly streaming c-span reruns to help with their research?
There are a lot of high bandwith uses for the Internet that don't involve piracy or torrents...so why is it only torrents are being targeted?
Because Bittorrent users upload. Cut the upload and they won't be targeted. Of course, that kinda negates the point of Bittorrent, but oh well.
YouTube's a download activity. Ditto Hulu.
You see, residential connections are horribly one-sided, optimized for downloads moreso than uploads (especially cable - any wonder why the biggest blockers are cable companies? Comcast, Time-Warner...). In fact on cable, it's so bad that a few users on the top tier high-speed plan can easily take down an entire node just by uploading at full speed, because no one else can fit their upload packets into the stream. And anyone who's played with a packet shaper knows what happens when you don't prioritize VoIP and online gaming. When the upstream is saturated, the internet is slow for everyone and latencies go through the roof.
But downloading huge streams is easy for cable because the upstream requirement is very low while you're grabbing MTU-sized packets on the downstream (a tiny 64-byte TCP ACK packet for a 1460 user bytes), especially since the download bandwidth is effectively unlimited - there's just that much of it around.
They're happy that people are using Hulu and Netflix and other stuff - download is effectively free, and there's actually enough of it to go around for everyone to stream all day. But uploads - well a few video chats and VoIP calls aren't doing too much (barely 100 kilobits in most cases) compared to the megabits that a few torrent users easily consume.
Perhaps the only comparable activity to Bittorrent uploading 24/7 would be a VPN, but even VPNs tend to be at best very bursty and not continuous.
It's my understanding that Sony can update the HDMI capabilities through firmware updates.
If that's so, why can't my PS3 phat bitstream DTS-MA or DD-TrueHD on HDMI? It only can output DTS or DD streams, and not the "high def" streams encoded on blu-ray today.
BTW, PS3 slim can bitstream, as can every blu-ray player out there.
In Apple's case, jailbreaking is to open up a closed device. Of course, anyone buying an Apple iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad just because you can jailbreak it and do what you want is pretty stupid - there are millions of other devices out there that are perfectly open. Jailbreaking is a bonus to make a nice device even better. But one should not be under any pretenses that it's sanctioned nor available everywhere (e.g., the second run iPhone 3GS require re-jailbreaking every time you reboot it).
In Sony's case, they're removing an advertised feature. In which case, "jailbreaking" is to get back what Sony sold me.
Apple never sold me anything on the basis that it can be jailbroken - the features and restrictions thereof have been known at the time of purchase. I still use them because they're pretty nice devices, and all are jailbroken because I might as well do it and enjoy the nice bonus.
Sony sold me a PS3 on the belief it has a certain set of features, namely, OtherOS. Now they're taking away that feature, so I am entitled to do whatever it takes to get back the same featureset that Sony offered when it sold it to me.
In one case, jailbreaking gets you more stuff. In the other, jailbreaking is to get back stuff you bought. Hell, Apple's rolled out more features for my iPhone than came with it when I bought it. Sony's pretty much ensured launch unit PS3s still command original selling prices on the used market by removing stuff every hardware revision. Heck, even the Xbox360 gained features on newer revisions (HDMI output...).
And yes, while I believe you can do anything you want with hardware, I also don't buy hardware just because someone's already hacked it, but whether or not that device without hacking would be useful to me. If I have two similar devices then the availability of a hack might sway me one way or another, but it's never a checklist item.
Speaking as someone who has used the Linux kernel a long time, and who has several of the 1992 and 93 releases on published CD-ROM media, that is very interesting. Big chunks of the Free Software out there are up for grabs in a 14-year copyright world.
Almost all of GNU Emacs falls into that category, and the 1996 Linux kernel is looking pretty useful for embedding purposes.
The problem is, there is very few 14-year old software that still is relevant today unchanged. Embedded a 14-year old Linux kernel may work for some projects, but others tend to want more recent technology, like SATA, USB, better networking/firewall, etc. Heck, under a 14 year copyright, Windows 95 is free and clear and use - which makes it pretty useless since few software apps will run on it today. Heck, there probably aren't drivers for all but the most basic hardware supported today still working.
14 years of technology progress is huge. So even if it was in public domain, no one really would want to use it. Lack of support is huge - no modern features, no drivers for modern hardware, post-1996 bug fixes are unavailable, etc. It'll be a huge undertaking just to use some public domain code.
Hell, you might as well use Windows 95, that's free and clear as well. In another year, WIn95 OSR2 will be free as well.
The only real software at risk are those packages that are so mature, that once they've been written, there really has been no reason to update it. But those are very few, and even the most slowly developed of all open-source apps have done a release in the past 14 years. Or everyone else has moved onto alternatives that are under more active development.
If you try, it turns out people will just obtain their demo any other way where they're not dishing out a single penny. Yes, I'm talking piracy. And they won't bother pirating the $5 demo, they'll pirate the full game, and use that to demo the game.
And console-only won't save you. All it takes is one person to say "Game XXX sucks". Friends of that guy then say "I heard game XXX sucks". And it then spreads quickly - after all, who's going to pay $5 for a demo of a game that sucks, nevermind buy the full game.
And all games suck - there is always someone unhappy with it.
I actually was reminded of this when I went to grab the latest version of VirtualBox (closed source - i need the features that aren't in the OSE version), and noticed all the Sun logos were replaced with Oracle ones.
Not worried about the open-source version since you can't really kill it, but since there's practically no revenue from it I guess it'll be next on the Oracle chopping block...
Looks like Sony's closed that loophole for now - it was a good two weeks while it lasted, but now SOny's enforcing a check. (Wonder if you can proxy-fake it?)
Guess we'll just wait for geohot to release his update.
In this case, the functionality was already there, and the update that removed Other OS was a required update if you wanted to continue using any Internet features on the device.
This should worry players on PSN then.
Playstation Network relies on the client PS3 to do version checking.
Why is that worrying? Because my PS3, which I have NOT updated (it's at 3.15 so I could play FF XIII and God of War 3), gets on PSN just fine. What I did was set up a DNS and web server at home, made it authoritative for a particular zone (the one Sony uses to check for updates), and serve up a update file that says "no, there are no updates". PS3 powers on, checks the update, sees none, and connects. And yes, I've tested this by downloading videos and stuff off PSN.
It is unknown how old your PS3 version can be before PSN won't work anymore.
Next, if geohot's hack really works, and all you have to do to re-enable OtherOS is to install a PS3 update, it means that modified firmware is possible without modding the machine. Such customizations may include an ISO loader (despite Blu-Ray, most games don't use all 50GB, and terabyte laptop hard disks are on their way, or simple SATA extension cables let you use those 2TB hard disks externally), or other interesting mods, like say wallhacks or aimbots, or allowing a PC to proxy in for PSN unencrypted (PSN communications are encrypted, but if they aren't, imagine gaming with someone who uses their PC to "assist" them).
A mythical "hack" that required lots of luck, specialized hardware has possible revealed bigger cracks in the PS3 ecosystem, not only allowing possible piracy, but also cheaters.
DIY has a slight advantage - the method is transferable to the PSP as well, so it can offer a way for CFW users to get on PSN (LittleBigPlanet and such).
Flying a jet as a glider somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean is... shall we say... a less than ideal flight profile.
Anyone know of a successful mid-ocean un-powered jet landing?
Not quite mid-ocean, but after the Gimli Glider incident, Air Transat Flight 236 holds the record for longest glide. The original flight path was between Toronto, Canada and Lisbon, and ran out of fuel over the atlantic. They managed to land in the Azores.
As long as spammers can continue to make money through spam, they will continue to send out more spam. You can filter all you want, you won't do shit to reduce the volume until you address the motivation behind the spam itself.
Worse yet, the business model ensures this is the case.
Business needs marketing, so they pay $100 for a million spams. Spammer takes $100, sends out million spams. Spammer gets $100 from next business and so on ad naseum.
It doesn't matter if the guy paying the spammer gets $100 worth of marketing, or if 999,999 of those emails he sent out were blocked at the firewall. Spammer got his $100, so he's happy. It's the business's problem that they paid $100 for such a "marketing" campaign that didn't generate much, if anything.
So spam volumes rise, but I doubt the number hitting mailboxes is - they just got paid for sending the email out, and businesses that pay for the service just assume it had a bad ROI. But the people being spammed aren't the spammer's customers, it's the business purchasing the service.
First, the A4 is a multi-chip package - there are three dies in the package. You have the A4 SoC, and two RAM chips embedded in the plastic (the flash is offboard).
Second, ARM chips are usually SoCs - you have the ARM core, plus all the other goodies around it - memory controller, GPU, peripherals, etc.
Third, Apple owns the only other ARM microarchitecture license. Marvell (who got it from Intel via Compaq via DEC) owns the other. Marvell's ARM compatible core is called XScale, and who knows what Apple is calling theirs other than A4. This is unlike other ARM licensees, who license the ARM core direct from ARM and thus can only plop in the ARM core and attach peripherals to it on the silicon via the well-known interfaces. With the microarchitecture license, Apple is free to modify an existing core for its needs, and it appears the A4 is based on a modified Cortex A8 core (which Apple is allowed to do, because of the microarchitecture license). Modifying an existing core is much easier than creating it from scratch. It could very well be that the modifications made the core much bigger
Finally, ARM is one of the most efficient architectures out there - power consumption is around 1mW/MHz (ARM quotes 1mW/MIPS, but ARM tends to scale 1:1). It'll be hard to justify a move to the POWER or PowerPC architecture, especially with the popularity of the ARM processor.
Given that we can store almost 525 bytes of data in a single twit (I refuse to call them tweets), which is enough for a sector of data plus metadata, could it now mean we can store our data permanently at taxpayer's expense?
I call it TwitterShare as a play on RapidShare to send files easily... and now those files will be forever archived. Sounds like a good way to backup data to me! Other than letting everyone else in the world see your files...
I don't understand why people mix up Flash and Flash video all the time. The latter is a small subset of the former. Can you really not conceptually tell the difference between a video playing at youtube and the content at http://www.homestarrunner.com/ ?
Because for the most part, Flash is used for video. If it wasn't for sites like YouTube, Flash would be 99% used for crap (ads and the like) and 1% used for useful materials (like homestarrunner). But because YouTube, Vimeo, DailyMotion and the like have Flash Video, it skews the usefulness of Flash upwards. I'm sure the reason people complained about the lack of Flash on the iPhone was not "I need my HSR!" but "I need my YouTube!".
Most people will probably be happy with their video sites working and "not supporting" the rest of Flash.
I've used full mobile flash before, and it's awful. All those flash ads suddenly appear and now your webpage takes forever to render because that ad consumes all the CPU cycles. Scrolling beocmes herky-jerky and random as lack of CPU means your scroll tap takes longer to process (and you probably already tapped several times by then). If your device supports native playback of flash video, then a FLV ad causes the player to start up and you to watch the first second or two of the ad as it pops open the player while you try to cancel out so you can see your web page. If not, then you go to places like YouTube and see dropped frames on the low-quality streams. Or, brilliantly, I went to see a video that locked up the device so badly, the easiest way to get out was to remove the battery (it wasn't hung - it played a few frames every 30 seconds or so, and a second of audio around the same time - a strange codec was used that consumed crapload of CPU cycles leaving none for the OS).
...the company has become a commodity to the point that 'twitting' is a mainstream verb.
Apparently not mainstream enough, because it's actually "tweeting".
(Disclaimer, my anecdotal data points are simply what I've heard people use + the fact that google's suggestions don't have any hits for "twitting", and do for "tweeting". They do have hits for "twittering", however.)
Or those of us who know the preferred term is "tweeting" but refuse to use it. It's called Twitter, and if they wanted people to "tweet" rather than "twit" they had plenty of opportunity to call it "Tweeter". No, they realized that people who'd use their site are twits, but know that if they called them that, people won't use their service.
Ah well, Twitter will soon follow the likes of other fads. Remember it was only a few years ago when second life was the hot thing?
Specifically the Quick Time team should sue the iPhone and iPod OS team for not putting Quick Time support in the OS. Seriously, why must we all convert our Quick Time movies? Is it really that hard to support their own format on their own device?
The iPhone OS *does* use QuickTime (the framework) to play movies and music. Hell, an MP4 container (as defined in MPEG4 Part 14) is a subset of the QuickTime MOV format. 3GP (as used on many cellphones) is also a subset of the MOV container.
Of course, the only codecs that ship with the iPhone OS support AVC (MPEG4 Part 10), AAC and MP3 - not the many common other ones that ship with QuickTime on MacOS. But I haven't seen any video play only on the iPhone and not say, iTunes (which uses QuickTime).
Remember, MOV is just a container, It can contain many streams, most of which won't play on an iPhone. You're left with supporting the ones that the QuickTime for the iPhone supports.
You can also try the above test with one eye closed. You will almost always fail at step 4.
The problem is the brain is actually quite good at figuring out where body parts are in 3D space, even if it only has a 2D image to work with. And the brain can compensate for tools that you may hold as well. Those who are extremely self-aware of position can do it blindfolded.
At best you need another person who does the movement based on verbal descriptions. Once you lose depth perception it gets very difficult.
* Ability to sign in to PlayStation Network and use network features that require signing in to PlayStation Network, such as online features of PS3 games and chat
Actually no. And this is one of the two things I've learned about the PS3 because of this.
1) Apparently modified firmware is loadable by anyone, no special tools needed other than a storage medium. 2) Playstation Network does not perform checks.
That's right, if you've got 3.15, you can either use a proxy hack, use a public no-update server, or set up your own DNS+Web server. Your PS3 will check against your server, see that no update is necessary, and connect to PSN. It's unknown how old your PS3 can be before it can't connect to PSN due to protocol changes. The only thing keeping people honest is the PS3, which if it checks Sony's server, and sees that its version is lower than what the Sony server says is current, it won't connect.
Now, what this has on the potential for cheaters on PSN, I don't know. But until this OtherOS fiasco, I wouldn't have bothered knowing.
Most people agree that the original author should have control of his creation. For example, my sister was very upset that someone wrote a sequel to Gone With the Wind, because the original author didn't want a sequel to be written (it was written after her death). That could have been prevented with modern copyright law. A lot of people view the descendants of Tolkien as the official guardians of the lore, and would be annoyed if someone else tried to hijack that (although the result couldn't possibly be worse than the cartoons). People like the feeling of officialness. They want the original author to be able to own the work. I think this is related to the fact that in our culture we really don't like plagiarism.
In other words, if you want to get political motion behind copyright reform, you are not only going to find the ideal economic balance, you're also going to have to find a way to convince people that giving control to the original author isn't all that important. Otherwise you can forget reforming copyright law. I am not sure of the best argument for this, maybe someone else can think of a convincing one.
I believe the market already sorts that out itself. If someone writes a sequel against the author's wishes on a work out of copyright, fans are free to reject it. If like most sequels it's horrible, then it'll just be a footnote in the original book's Wikipedia page and forgotten about. I'm sure most people probably didn't know there's a GWTW "sequel", so it probably wasn't that great to begin with.
Officialness is easy - if the author is alive, and they write a sequel, that is an official sequel. IF not, then either the author has given someone else to do sequels (like the HHGTTG one after Mostly Harmless), or they're unofficial. Unofficial isn't bad - consider the amount of fanfiction out there.
And I believe there are times when the official sequel was so horrible, it fell into the footnote, while an unofficial one was much better. Rare, but happens.
To use your example, I would take it that nothing that takes place outside the Tolkien franchises is good, and stuff like fanfiction, fanpages, fan wikies which aren't "blessed" are therefore bad and to preserve the "officialness" of the franchise, they ought to be removed and deleted?
Also, all my cards say "CHECK ID" in big bold lettering on the back.
As long as it's not in the signature panel (and there's a valid signature there). It's a myth that "check ID" is valid, and a merchant not only must reject it, he may actually call his provider and ask what to do with the obviously invalid card.
The signature panel states simply "the cardholder agrees the cardholder terms of agreement". The slip you sign says "the cardholder agrees to pay the abovementioned charges". If you put "CHECK ID" in the signature panel, it is considered invalid. And the card may be requested to be destroyed immediately by the issuer.
People think the cashier should compare signatures, but they aren't experts at handwriting comparison. All they want is proof of contract - the card was issued, the terms of use for the card accepted (signed card), and that the cardholder agrees to the charge.
Chip cards are a bit more complex, since it's assumed that use of it constitutes agreement, and entering your PIN means you'll pay. But personally I'm wary - there was a post a few months ago about how they are fundamentally broken (the PIN is stored in the card, so someone with a laptop, card reader and fake card can go on a shopping spree). Especially since chip cards aren't handled by the merchant so a fake card is easily hidden.
It's also why the card-not-present transactions are oh-so-much-more complex, and liability-shifting technology like 3DS (SecureCode/VerifiedByVisa) exists. As such, I also only trust 3DS sites by well-known merchants, since those have fundamental security flaws.
Prepaid VIsa/MC is the best, just a real pity they have fees up the wazoo - like $10 to buy the card, $2 to fill the card with money, $5/month "maintenance fee", etc.
I don't see how the user agreement change prevents Flash apps from being recompiled into native ones.
It says to only use documented (public) APIs. I would assume that the runtime and compiler do this, no? Or does the flash to native compiler already use private APIs?
When you get down to it, you can code in assembly, C, C++, or other languages that compile against ARM and the libs Apple provides...
No, this article is not fully accurate. Well, the title isn't at least. Some consoles have been bricked as they won't turn on but who knows if they had a modchip or otherwise illegal modification to them. Most systems are not bricked but do have the above issues. All I know is I won't update mine until Geohot comes up with some type of workaround. Here's to hoping Geohot or someone else becomes the PS3 version of the great DarkAlex.
Were there even modchips for the PS3? As far as I could tell, it wasn't possible to run pirated games on the PS3, and the homebrew community pretty much went with the Linux stuff prior to 3.21, leading to the PS3 being relatively unbroken and modchip free.
But yeah, Sony pretty much opened a can of worms with this one - once the custom firmware stuff starts, piracy's pretty much around the corner (especially since you'll probably load the games off hard disks, rather than needing to burn a blu-ray).
Even if all geohot did was make an update that restored OtherOS, it's going to just be a hop, skip and a jump to add ISO loader support. And when homebrewers and pirates end up working towards the same goal, it's going to happen. It's why the Wii is pretty much broken (homebrew channel + USB loader), Xbox360 is less so (you can only run copied games - the only unsigned code you can run is via XNA), and PS3 hasn't needed homebrew hacks.
Especially since the fix is "easy" - just remove 3.21 support, relase a 3.22 with OtherOS, thus stemming the search for custom firmware. A partially broken homebrew is still better (for Sony) than one that's fully broken by people who have the means (homebrewers and pirates have access to very expensive tools), motive (homebrewers love this) and will (let's restore removed functionality) to do so.
In the meantime, I might just pick up another PS3, and instead of giving it to my friend (who'll buy games - $$$ for Sony), I probably will keep it for games, and see what interneting things happen on my launch PS3 - which may suddenly get very desirable very quickly.
Just because you CALL it fraud doesn't MAKE it fraud. Sony has said your perfectly free to not accept the update. You'll simply be unable to access any of their online services, or play certain newer games that run assuming the newest firmware. That's in the EULA that you accepted by purchasing the system and inserting a game disc, or putting it online and connecting to their services.
Big problem still is that Sony pretty much annoys you into doing the update.
I'm fine as I don't need PSN - my friends are on Xbox Live, and the only games I have for the PS3 I play are single-player. However, they pop up the dialog saying "a software update is required" on startup, and the bloody advertising ticker (which is non-removable as of 3.xx) still updates, even though all the PSN stuff now says "sign in".
At least an un-signed-in Xbox drops all the ads...
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True, but there's also a good possibility that the your part wasn't binned to fulfill an order. Chips go through a severe set of stress tests that often exceed what will be encountered in practical use. During these tests, it may be revealed that a core doesn't function properly or well enough (it gives bad results) to qualify. All chips go through that, and that's why there's many redundant structures on a chip (to improve yields). (Sony PS3 has 7 SPUs when they build 8 on a chip, Xbox360's got 3 PowerPC cores even though it has 4, Intel disables cache lines and/or functional units, etc. etc. etc.)
So the question is, are those cores disabled because AMD had extra parts and an outstanding order they could fulfill? Or are there actually potential issues that may only be revealed under certain loads? FOr the most part, it just means a game crashes a bit more often than usual (since mission critical servers never do wierd things like this - the money saved isn't worth the potential for extra downtime), or maybe a file gets corrupted. Or worse, your disk gets corrupted.
Plus, AMD's historically been supply-bound and unable to fulfill demand for their product, so there's a potential that instead of getting a binned part, it's actually one that failed their test patterns.
And yes, you see the same behavior with flash chips - NAND flash traditionally ships with bad blocks, and the majority of those can probably be erased and used quite safely (having accidentally destroyed the bad block information before due to buggy software...), but you never can tell why it was marked bad in the first place.
And the people behind you.
I never did understand those who mindlessly stand in line, then at the very end look at the menu and decide then. After all, you had all the time in the world in the lineup to review the menu, the current day's news, the weather around the world, etc. in the lineup, but no, only when you get to the front of the line do you act with surprise like the menu's only visible by you and then stand and think.
Because Bittorrent users upload. Cut the upload and they won't be targeted. Of course, that kinda negates the point of Bittorrent, but oh well.
YouTube's a download activity. Ditto Hulu.
You see, residential connections are horribly one-sided, optimized for downloads moreso than uploads (especially cable - any wonder why the biggest blockers are cable companies? Comcast, Time-Warner...). In fact on cable, it's so bad that a few users on the top tier high-speed plan can easily take down an entire node just by uploading at full speed, because no one else can fit their upload packets into the stream. And anyone who's played with a packet shaper knows what happens when you don't prioritize VoIP and online gaming. When the upstream is saturated, the internet is slow for everyone and latencies go through the roof.
But downloading huge streams is easy for cable because the upstream requirement is very low while you're grabbing MTU-sized packets on the downstream (a tiny 64-byte TCP ACK packet for a 1460 user bytes), especially since the download bandwidth is effectively unlimited - there's just that much of it around.
They're happy that people are using Hulu and Netflix and other stuff - download is effectively free, and there's actually enough of it to go around for everyone to stream all day. But uploads - well a few video chats and VoIP calls aren't doing too much (barely 100 kilobits in most cases) compared to the megabits that a few torrent users easily consume.
Perhaps the only comparable activity to Bittorrent uploading 24/7 would be a VPN, but even VPNs tend to be at best very bursty and not continuous.
If that's so, why can't my PS3 phat bitstream DTS-MA or DD-TrueHD on HDMI? It only can output DTS or DD streams, and not the "high def" streams encoded on blu-ray today.
BTW, PS3 slim can bitstream, as can every blu-ray player out there.
In Apple's case, jailbreaking is to open up a closed device. Of course, anyone buying an Apple iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad just because you can jailbreak it and do what you want is pretty stupid - there are millions of other devices out there that are perfectly open. Jailbreaking is a bonus to make a nice device even better. But one should not be under any pretenses that it's sanctioned nor available everywhere (e.g., the second run iPhone 3GS require re-jailbreaking every time you reboot it).
In Sony's case, they're removing an advertised feature. In which case, "jailbreaking" is to get back what Sony sold me.
Apple never sold me anything on the basis that it can be jailbroken - the features and restrictions thereof have been known at the time of purchase. I still use them because they're pretty nice devices, and all are jailbroken because I might as well do it and enjoy the nice bonus.
Sony sold me a PS3 on the belief it has a certain set of features, namely, OtherOS. Now they're taking away that feature, so I am entitled to do whatever it takes to get back the same featureset that Sony offered when it sold it to me.
In one case, jailbreaking gets you more stuff. In the other, jailbreaking is to get back stuff you bought. Hell, Apple's rolled out more features for my iPhone than came with it when I bought it. Sony's pretty much ensured launch unit PS3s still command original selling prices on the used market by removing stuff every hardware revision. Heck, even the Xbox360 gained features on newer revisions (HDMI output...).
And yes, while I believe you can do anything you want with hardware, I also don't buy hardware just because someone's already hacked it, but whether or not that device without hacking would be useful to me. If I have two similar devices then the availability of a hack might sway me one way or another, but it's never a checklist item.
The problem is, there is very few 14-year old software that still is relevant today unchanged. Embedded a 14-year old Linux kernel may work for some projects, but others tend to want more recent technology, like SATA, USB, better networking/firewall, etc. Heck, under a 14 year copyright, Windows 95 is free and clear and use - which makes it pretty useless since few software apps will run on it today. Heck, there probably aren't drivers for all but the most basic hardware supported today still working.
14 years of technology progress is huge. So even if it was in public domain, no one really would want to use it. Lack of support is huge - no modern features, no drivers for modern hardware, post-1996 bug fixes are unavailable, etc. It'll be a huge undertaking just to use some public domain code.
Hell, you might as well use Windows 95, that's free and clear as well. In another year, WIn95 OSR2 will be free as well.
The only real software at risk are those packages that are so mature, that once they've been written, there really has been no reason to update it. But those are very few, and even the most slowly developed of all open-source apps have done a release in the past 14 years. Or everyone else has moved onto alternatives that are under more active development.
You can't kill the free demo.
If you try, it turns out people will just obtain their demo any other way where they're not dishing out a single penny. Yes, I'm talking piracy. And they won't bother pirating the $5 demo, they'll pirate the full game, and use that to demo the game.
And console-only won't save you. All it takes is one person to say "Game XXX sucks". Friends of that guy then say "I heard game XXX sucks". And it then spreads quickly - after all, who's going to pay $5 for a demo of a game that sucks, nevermind buy the full game.
And all games suck - there is always someone unhappy with it.
I actually was reminded of this when I went to grab the latest version of VirtualBox (closed source - i need the features that aren't in the OSE version), and noticed all the Sun logos were replaced with Oracle ones.
Not worried about the open-source version since you can't really kill it, but since there's practically no revenue from it I guess it'll be next on the Oracle chopping block...
ATTENTION - the DNS hack does NOT WORK ANYMORE
Looks like Sony's closed that loophole for now - it was a good two weeks while it lasted, but now SOny's enforcing a check. (Wonder if you can proxy-fake it?)
Guess we'll just wait for geohot to release his update.
This should worry players on PSN then.
Playstation Network relies on the client PS3 to do version checking.
Why is that worrying? Because my PS3, which I have NOT updated (it's at 3.15 so I could play FF XIII and God of War 3), gets on PSN just fine. What I did was set up a DNS and web server at home, made it authoritative for a particular zone (the one Sony uses to check for updates), and serve up a update file that says "no, there are no updates". PS3 powers on, checks the update, sees none, and connects. And yes, I've tested this by downloading videos and stuff off PSN.
It is unknown how old your PS3 version can be before PSN won't work anymore.
Next, if geohot's hack really works, and all you have to do to re-enable OtherOS is to install a PS3 update, it means that modified firmware is possible without modding the machine. Such customizations may include an ISO loader (despite Blu-Ray, most games don't use all 50GB, and terabyte laptop hard disks are on their way, or simple SATA extension cables let you use those 2TB hard disks externally), or other interesting mods, like say wallhacks or aimbots, or allowing a PC to proxy in for PSN unencrypted (PSN communications are encrypted, but if they aren't, imagine gaming with someone who uses their PC to "assist" them).
A mythical "hack" that required lots of luck, specialized hardware has possible revealed bigger cracks in the PS3 ecosystem, not only allowing possible piracy, but also cheaters.
BTW, if you want to do the PSN hack so you can still get online:
If you trust someone on the 'net - set your DNS setting as described on the following page (easy, just requires updating PS3 DNS server setting) - http://www.mydigitallife.info/2010/04/05/how-to-access-psn-bypassing-ps3-firmware-3-21-upgrade-for-otheros/
If you want to do it yourself - this forum thread has BIND and IIS details - http://rvlution.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=123
DIY has a slight advantage - the method is transferable to the PSP as well, so it can offer a way for CFW users to get on PSN (LittleBigPlanet and such).
Not quite mid-ocean, but after the Gimli Glider incident, Air Transat Flight 236 holds the record for longest glide. The original flight path was between Toronto, Canada and Lisbon, and ran out of fuel over the atlantic. They managed to land in the Azores.
Both happened with Canadian airlines...
Worse yet, the business model ensures this is the case.
Business needs marketing, so they pay $100 for a million spams. Spammer takes $100, sends out million spams. Spammer gets $100 from next business and so on ad naseum.
It doesn't matter if the guy paying the spammer gets $100 worth of marketing, or if 999,999 of those emails he sent out were blocked at the firewall. Spammer got his $100, so he's happy. It's the business's problem that they paid $100 for such a "marketing" campaign that didn't generate much, if anything.
So spam volumes rise, but I doubt the number hitting mailboxes is - they just got paid for sending the email out, and businesses that pay for the service just assume it had a bad ROI. But the people being spammed aren't the spammer's customers, it's the business purchasing the service.
First, the A4 is a multi-chip package - there are three dies in the package. You have the A4 SoC, and two RAM chips embedded in the plastic (the flash is offboard).
Second, ARM chips are usually SoCs - you have the ARM core, plus all the other goodies around it - memory controller, GPU, peripherals, etc.
Third, Apple owns the only other ARM microarchitecture license. Marvell (who got it from Intel via Compaq via DEC) owns the other. Marvell's ARM compatible core is called XScale, and who knows what Apple is calling theirs other than A4. This is unlike other ARM licensees, who license the ARM core direct from ARM and thus can only plop in the ARM core and attach peripherals to it on the silicon via the well-known interfaces. With the microarchitecture license, Apple is free to modify an existing core for its needs, and it appears the A4 is based on a modified Cortex A8 core (which Apple is allowed to do, because of the microarchitecture license). Modifying an existing core is much easier than creating it from scratch. It could very well be that the modifications made the core much bigger
Finally, ARM is one of the most efficient architectures out there - power consumption is around 1mW/MHz (ARM quotes 1mW/MIPS, but ARM tends to scale 1:1). It'll be hard to justify a move to the POWER or PowerPC architecture, especially with the popularity of the ARM processor.
Given that we can store almost 525 bytes of data in a single twit (I refuse to call them tweets), which is enough for a sector of data plus metadata, could it now mean we can store our data permanently at taxpayer's expense?
I call it TwitterShare as a play on RapidShare to send files easily... and now those files will be forever archived. Sounds like a good way to backup data to me! Other than letting everyone else in the world see your files...
Because for the most part, Flash is used for video. If it wasn't for sites like YouTube, Flash would be 99% used for crap (ads and the like) and 1% used for useful materials (like homestarrunner). But because YouTube, Vimeo, DailyMotion and the like have Flash Video, it skews the usefulness of Flash upwards. I'm sure the reason people complained about the lack of Flash on the iPhone was not "I need my HSR!" but "I need my YouTube!".
Most people will probably be happy with their video sites working and "not supporting" the rest of Flash.
I've used full mobile flash before, and it's awful. All those flash ads suddenly appear and now your webpage takes forever to render because that ad consumes all the CPU cycles. Scrolling beocmes herky-jerky and random as lack of CPU means your scroll tap takes longer to process (and you probably already tapped several times by then). If your device supports native playback of flash video, then a FLV ad causes the player to start up and you to watch the first second or two of the ad as it pops open the player while you try to cancel out so you can see your web page. If not, then you go to places like YouTube and see dropped frames on the low-quality streams. Or, brilliantly, I went to see a video that locked up the device so badly, the easiest way to get out was to remove the battery (it wasn't hung - it played a few frames every 30 seconds or so, and a second of audio around the same time - a strange codec was used that consumed crapload of CPU cycles leaving none for the OS).
Or those of us who know the preferred term is "tweeting" but refuse to use it. It's called Twitter, and if they wanted people to "tweet" rather than "twit" they had plenty of opportunity to call it "Tweeter". No, they realized that people who'd use their site are twits, but know that if they called them that, people won't use their service.
Ah well, Twitter will soon follow the likes of other fads. Remember it was only a few years ago when second life was the hot thing?
The iPhone OS *does* use QuickTime (the framework) to play movies and music. Hell, an MP4 container (as defined in MPEG4 Part 14) is a subset of the QuickTime MOV format. 3GP (as used on many cellphones) is also a subset of the MOV container.
Of course, the only codecs that ship with the iPhone OS support AVC (MPEG4 Part 10), AAC and MP3 - not the many common other ones that ship with QuickTime on MacOS. But I haven't seen any video play only on the iPhone and not say, iTunes (which uses QuickTime).
Remember, MOV is just a container, It can contain many streams, most of which won't play on an iPhone. You're left with supporting the ones that the QuickTime for the iPhone supports.
The problem is the brain is actually quite good at figuring out where body parts are in 3D space, even if it only has a 2D image to work with. And the brain can compensate for tools that you may hold as well. Those who are extremely self-aware of position can do it blindfolded.
At best you need another person who does the movement based on verbal descriptions. Once you lose depth perception it gets very difficult.
Actually no. And this is one of the two things I've learned about the PS3 because of this.
1) Apparently modified firmware is loadable by anyone, no special tools needed other than a storage medium.
2) Playstation Network does not perform checks.
That's right, if you've got 3.15, you can either use a proxy hack, use a public no-update server, or set up your own DNS+Web server. Your PS3 will check against your server, see that no update is necessary, and connect to PSN. It's unknown how old your PS3 can be before it can't connect to PSN due to protocol changes. The only thing keeping people honest is the PS3, which if it checks Sony's server, and sees that its version is lower than what the Sony server says is current, it won't connect.
Now, what this has on the potential for cheaters on PSN, I don't know. But until this OtherOS fiasco, I wouldn't have bothered knowing.
How to bypass PSN version check - http://www.mydigitallife.info/2010/04/05/how-to-access-psn-bypassing-ps3-firmware-3-21-upgrade-for-otheros/
How to set up your own bypass - http://rvlution.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=123 (requires DNS and HTTP servers).
Thanks Sony!
I believe the market already sorts that out itself. If someone writes a sequel against the author's wishes on a work out of copyright, fans are free to reject it. If like most sequels it's horrible, then it'll just be a footnote in the original book's Wikipedia page and forgotten about. I'm sure most people probably didn't know there's a GWTW "sequel", so it probably wasn't that great to begin with.
Officialness is easy - if the author is alive, and they write a sequel, that is an official sequel. IF not, then either the author has given someone else to do sequels (like the HHGTTG one after Mostly Harmless), or they're unofficial. Unofficial isn't bad - consider the amount of fanfiction out there.
And I believe there are times when the official sequel was so horrible, it fell into the footnote, while an unofficial one was much better. Rare, but happens.
To use your example, I would take it that nothing that takes place outside the Tolkien franchises is good, and stuff like fanfiction, fanpages, fan wikies which aren't "blessed" are therefore bad and to preserve the "officialness" of the franchise, they ought to be removed and deleted?
As long as it's not in the signature panel (and there's a valid signature there). It's a myth that "check ID" is valid, and a merchant not only must reject it, he may actually call his provider and ask what to do with the obviously invalid card.
The signature panel states simply "the cardholder agrees the cardholder terms of agreement". The slip you sign says "the cardholder agrees to pay the abovementioned charges". If you put "CHECK ID" in the signature panel, it is considered invalid. And the card may be requested to be destroyed immediately by the issuer.
People think the cashier should compare signatures, but they aren't experts at handwriting comparison. All they want is proof of contract - the card was issued, the terms of use for the card accepted (signed card), and that the cardholder agrees to the charge.
Chip cards are a bit more complex, since it's assumed that use of it constitutes agreement, and entering your PIN means you'll pay. But personally I'm wary - there was a post a few months ago about how they are fundamentally broken (the PIN is stored in the card, so someone with a laptop, card reader and fake card can go on a shopping spree). Especially since chip cards aren't handled by the merchant so a fake card is easily hidden.
It's also why the card-not-present transactions are oh-so-much-more complex, and liability-shifting technology like 3DS (SecureCode/VerifiedByVisa) exists. As such, I also only trust 3DS sites by well-known merchants, since those have fundamental security flaws.
Prepaid VIsa/MC is the best, just a real pity they have fees up the wazoo - like $10 to buy the card, $2 to fill the card with money, $5/month "maintenance fee", etc.
I don't see how the user agreement change prevents Flash apps from being recompiled into native ones.
It says to only use documented (public) APIs. I would assume that the runtime and compiler do this, no? Or does the flash to native compiler already use private APIs?
When you get down to it, you can code in assembly, C, C++, or other languages that compile against ARM and the libs Apple provides...
Were there even modchips for the PS3? As far as I could tell, it wasn't possible to run pirated games on the PS3, and the homebrew community pretty much went with the Linux stuff prior to 3.21, leading to the PS3 being relatively unbroken and modchip free.
But yeah, Sony pretty much opened a can of worms with this one - once the custom firmware stuff starts, piracy's pretty much around the corner (especially since you'll probably load the games off hard disks, rather than needing to burn a blu-ray).
Even if all geohot did was make an update that restored OtherOS, it's going to just be a hop, skip and a jump to add ISO loader support. And when homebrewers and pirates end up working towards the same goal, it's going to happen. It's why the Wii is pretty much broken (homebrew channel + USB loader), Xbox360 is less so (you can only run copied games - the only unsigned code you can run is via XNA), and PS3 hasn't needed homebrew hacks.
Especially since the fix is "easy" - just remove 3.21 support, relase a 3.22 with OtherOS, thus stemming the search for custom firmware. A partially broken homebrew is still better (for Sony) than one that's fully broken by people who have the means (homebrewers and pirates have access to very expensive tools), motive (homebrewers love this) and will (let's restore removed functionality) to do so.
In the meantime, I might just pick up another PS3, and instead of giving it to my friend (who'll buy games - $$$ for Sony), I probably will keep it for games, and see what interneting things happen on my launch PS3 - which may suddenly get very desirable very quickly.
Big problem still is that Sony pretty much annoys you into doing the update.
I'm fine as I don't need PSN - my friends are on Xbox Live, and the only games I have for the PS3 I play are single-player. However, they pop up the dialog saying "a software update is required" on startup, and the bloody advertising ticker (which is non-removable as of 3.xx) still updates, even though all the PSN stuff now says "sign in".
At least an un-signed-in Xbox drops all the ads...
Easy one for Halo fans. After all, we can name it after the guy who'll save the humans against the Covernant and the Flood.
(John-117 aka Master Chief).