Amusing at several levels but I agree with you. It seems that my life is filled with updates of too many various devices. Phone, computer, router, printer, printer, boat electronics, half the crap at work, my little drones, the camera gear.
Nowadays, if it has a battery it has a USB port (of some various flavor, that's another rant) that is there for charging (fine, just pick ONE goddamned connector please) and upgrading. Lately, I've just been leaving things alone. If it sort of works, then it doesn't get changed. I don't care if the Russians invade my camera.
My truck has been a last bastion of un upgradedness. Just fill it with lots of gas, occasionally change the oil and every couple of months send it to the garage to replace some broken bit. It's never been 'upgraded' since it rolled off the floor in 1990. Still gets me where I want to go, even if I have to do it myself.
Well, the problem is more and more stuff is shipping half-baked. And it's shipped that way often because it's complicated, and practical hardware construction means the software has to be done way earlier - imagine you're producing a product for release during the holidays (say a late November release). This means the shipping for the product starts late October, and your packing starts in late September. This means everything has to be built/printed/etc by late August. Hardware production will probably take a month, so everything has to be set by late July. You probably want to QA, so let's give a few weeks for that, making end of June you have to have all the software ready. And you know what? Your first customer won't have it in their hands for another 5 months!
That 5 months could easily be another 20-25% of development time which could be used to squash further bugs and implement lower priority features. Or more fully utilize the hardware - perhaps a feature was implemented using the basic features of the hardware, leaving the advanced features unutilized until later (e.g., like traffic radar).
So yes, there's a lot of updates flying around.
As for USB, it changes because demands force it to. Phones used a custom connector, then they started USB mini-B because that was all that was defined. People demanded more, and the USB Forum added the Micro connectors to the mix. And all was happy until people demanded that USB get something like Apple's connector, which implemented *gasp*, the ability to insert it either way. (Proprietary isn't all bad - you need it in order to try some things that the standard might not have cared about, like a symmetrical connector).
And now we have a handful of USB connectors. Oddly, in the same amount of time, Apple has gone through just two different connectors for their devices - 30 pin dock, and current Lightning (and everyone bitches because they changed it, but no one's bitching when they went from Mini to Micro to USB-C).
Thankfully, USB-C is fairly future-proof, so that should be it for the next little while.
As for your truck, really, no upgrades? No radio, no GPS, no rear camera? (Rear cameras are becoming mandatory because they eliminate the rear blind spot, which on a truck is huge). Unless you can look out both sing mirrors at the same time and out the back to make sure some kid didn't sneak behind you...
The fires in the "fixed" Note 7s (which used a battery from an established Chinese manufacturer) were a bit of a surprise. But from what I gather, the number of incidents was extremely small, possibly within the range of random chance. And Samsung pulled the phone entirely simply because they felt the brand name had been too damaged.
It was not random chance. There were several incidences where the replacements also burned up, and even if Samsung shipped a million, that's still a lot higher than other smartphones. If we estimate that Samsung shipped about 3 million before the 35+ cases (before the US ship date) and another 100 when they did the recall when they shipped another say, 7 million, so 100 out of 10 million units is 1 out of 100,000.
If we take an iPhone 7 series, Apple moves roughly 10M a month on average. That would imply every month, we have 100 iPhones exploding. Which would be either big news, or it happens so often it's no longer news (given an iPhone sells around 70M units, that would be 7,000 phones exploding).
We do know of maybe a handful of iPhones exploding, which is at least a couple of orders of magnitude less than the Note 7.
Even the Samsung S7 which probably shipped twice as many units before the Note 7 even launched (say, 20M), that would mean there would be 200 units exploding, which we also know is not the case.
So it's not random chance. There is a legitimate design flaw that makes it happen well above the industry average.
Yeah, I'd love a 16:10 monitor in 4K resolution, but it's unobtainable. 16:9 sucks for anything but TV. I'd like to strangle those who put the computer industry in 16:9.
Strangle the consumer. They chose 16:9 screens for one simple reason - because of TV production, they're super cheap. A 1080P LCD is super cheap because they're used in TVs as well, as well as the video processors and scalers.
16:10 require their own manufacture of screens and video processor chips that aren't manufactured in huge quantities. Thus they cost more.
Anyone complaining about 16:9 panels simply is being cheap - 16:9 is cheap because of mass production of TVs and its electronics. You can buy 16:10 displays easily - just be prepared to pay twice as much - a 24" 1080p is easily $100-150, while a 24" 16:10 (1920x1200) is $250-300.
In this case the most obvious way to do better is not use 'smart' meters. They're not saving us any money. And without seeing that spinning wheel, I can't tell how fast I'm consuming the electricity. The old meters are secure and robust. Why try to 'fix' what ain't broke?
Well, the reason is several.
First, in places where there's electricity theft, smart meters allow for detection - if you measure the power consumed in a neighbourhood, the sum of the power consumed by each house should tally up. If not, then they investigate.
As for seeing how much you consume, it's actually easy. Most meters have a "virtual wheel" or a blinking light. The virtual wheel is on the display and just moves like the old wheel does, though it is a bit smaller. If it's a light, then each blink represents a fixed unit of kWh - you need to refer to the meter to find the metrological number which tells you how much kWh each pulse represents.
And if not that, a log into the website often can tell you your current usage. Some even sell you a device that lets you remotely monitor the meter - which can tell you your current usage, the current reading, etc.
Most smart meters are properly designed - the reason it's a light is because the measurement board just gives a pulse every fixed kWh consumed and that's the only communications available. The electronics board tallies up the count and displays it. Hack the meter and...? There's no connection to the measurement board - it just receives pulses.
As for the communications options, some use a proprietary WiFi that's 802.11g-based, but at 900MHz, others are using a 3G cellular network. Others use regular WiFi. So "da evil smart meter waves" are basically cordless phones/garage door/etc (900MHz ISM shared military radar), cellphone or WiFi.
Granted, there are probably some options used in other parts of the world - though a full power disconnect is rare because of the cost of ab appropriate contactor (usually either a liquid or gas insulated contactor) but those are usually separate devices due to cost.
is a load of crap. These are state machines, typically written in embedded C. There are typically current transformers that have a large winding ratio, even if the electronics/firmware screws up there is no back driving the power line. And no relays. This guy has been watching too much Hollywood.,
Most smart meters are like this. They consist of two boards - a measurement board and an electronics board. The measurement board consists of current transformers and measures the current draw. It provides a pulse every fractional kWh or so. That pulse goes to the electronics board which is responsible for tallying the count, and keeping the count and communications. They also often have a way for representing the pulse to give you the "virtual wheel" or a pulsing light. The latter can be converted to kWh consumed using the metrological number printed on the meter which tells you how much kWh each pulse represents.
Fires from smart meters is almost always caused by corroded contacts - while meters only have a 10 year calibration, most meters are never changed since the building was built and exposed to the elements. So when the house was new, the meter box was new and the meter base was new and shiny. 20 years later, they replace the electric meter and the meter base is completely corroded. Remove the old meter, plug in the new one, and there's a big resistance due to the corrosion, causing lots of heat and eventually a fire.
We've seen a number of "Flurry" submissions on Slashdot of late...
Flurry is a mobile analytics company. They're well established - they've been around at least as long as the Apple App Store and many apps use them for app analytics (usage, crash logging, etc).
They're embedded in a ton of popular apps which is why they're able to get you information like phone activation data.
Any simple firewall for any phone would tell you all the apps that report to flurry. Android requires root, iOS requires jailbreaking.
I would sign up to have a $14million in 3 days flop on any platform.
The problem is, iOS users are more likely to pay for the app than Android users. With Android it may e downloaded 100 times more than iOS in 3 days, but make 1/10th as much as most users are cheap.
The good news though is the online only requirement will probably be hacked within a few hours by same Android users (the online only requirement is for anti-piracy purposes, which is odd on iOS since iOS piracy is extremely low - about 10% max. On Android, it's easily 90%, so there's a greater push to pirate it or hack it so it works for free).
Smarter nations don't store their gov documents in plain text facing the internet.
I believe Internet access for government employees was cut off a little while ago.
That's right, no internet access anymore for government employees.
Not that it matters - there's the Great Firewall of Singapore to deal with. One that probably tracks you trying to access illicit materials and gets you arrested. Unlike say, the Chinese firewall which just blocks.
One thing that struck me while I was there was how little there was to do. It's all so highly regulated that it's just work, shopping and few other highly controlled activities. If that's all you do, great, it's a great country. But if you want to do some recreation, camping, or other activity that the government doesn't allow, well, it's sort of disallowed.
Don't get me wrong, the place is very efficient - public transit is great - it runs on time (and when it doesn't, people get fired) and all that - no power outages or other things. But it's also sort of boring. Yes, maybe 60% of Americans would probably fit in if all you do is work, shop, and do a few things like movies and such. But it really lacks any sort of "community" feel even though everyone takes care of family and such. It's more of a "I take care of my own family and relatives. You have no relation to me, go away. Why do you even say hello to me? I don't know y ou. Go away."
And, frankly, we don't know if there was some subset of Apple's internal tests which did indicate this sort of issue, but the company decided weren't critical enough to cause them to hold production. The iPhone 4 antenna issues showed it can - and does - happen. Heck, how did Samsung release an exploding phone, if all these companies' "advanced and extensive" internal testing is infallible?
Well, Samsung had a design flaw that the law of large numbers meant turning a rare event into a probable one.
CR works by going to the store and buying a random unit off the shelf, like a consumer would. And I'm pretty sure they probably buy more than one to ensure consistency.
CR's testing is largely scientific - repeated tests doing the same thing to a test standard, but again, they do what typical consumers would test.
The only real question is did CR do something to potentially invalidate the test or maybe their app runs completely oddly. The best test would be external - besides a bit of set up it runs automatically without requiring anything more than a user or apparatus pushing buttons. If they're using a test script, perhaps the script is doing something that is screwing up the test results.
Abuse of position and anti-competitive behaviour DOES NOT require violation of antitrust law. Apple doing this is wrong, and something should be done about it.
Last year, Amazon stopped selling the Apple TV because "it doesn't support Amazon Video". Except Amazon refused to write an app for the Apple TV (it exists for iPhones and iPads, but not AppleTV).
So perhaps we should sanction Amazon too?
It's just a crappy IoT thing that Apple stopped selling. I'm sure you can find it at Best Buy if you really really really needed it.Just because Apple refuses to sell you one, doesn't mean you can't find it at Best Buy, or Amazon or any other place that sells the things.
It would be anti-trust if Apple removed the apps from the App Store, or recinded the "Made for iPhone" branding so it no longer worked.
Yes, google really screwed up on this year, they literally built a iphone clone, running android, and got rid off all the things that made their phones great, including the name.
Don't forget the limited support - Google says it will have 2 years of software updates, plus a final year of security updates. And that's it.
Their old Nexus line had support for 18 months AFTER it stops going on sale. In fact, the 5X/6P was released because the 5/6 were coming up to the 18 month mark
Heck, Apple has longer support for iOS - granted, after the first couple of years it's mostly just security updates, but still, most phones got at least 3-4 years or support or more.
Given it costs as much as an iPhone, I would expect iPhone levels of support.
As much as I hate it, ripping for personal use is illegal under the DMCA (anti-circumvention). Ripping for the content editing I think is explicitly separately allowed, but I'm not sure if that's what makes it legal for them. They may be playing the physical disc with an EDL - I don't actually know.
That's what they claim happens. You buy one of their DVDs for $20, and when you want to watch it, you have them put your disc in their DVD player and the output of which is streamed to you. The objectionable parts are mysteriously edited out (either through fastforwarding and blanking the outputs or other mechanism). When you're done, the DVD is returned back to your vault, and you can sell it back as used for $19.
The question becomes does it become important who does it or not? Because anyone can do it now with a DVD player and a Slingbox and you're just having someone else do it for you.
...is what slows my connection speed down. Fuck, I could have a gigabit connection and would spend 80% of my time waiting for the next version of ad.doubleclick.net, etc. Really? Bufferbloat? I wish!
Yeah, you'd think the folks at Alphabet (DoubleClick's parent company) would know a thing or two about how to optimize for the Internet.
On the other hand, now DoubleClick knows everything you did on other Alphabet sites, like Google, YouTube, etc.
Oh, I understand why airlines overbook. But I just can't grasp why a significant number of people who've paid good money for airline tickets simply don't show up. If I spend several hundred dollars on something, I'm going to make sure I get what I paid for...
1) Missed connections. This happens way more often than you think - either the connection is impossible, delays, or longer than normal flight can easily cause a connection to be missed.
2) Cheap seats - a lot of these are non-refundable, and non-flexible (and thus, cheap). If you need to change it for any reason, (perhaps your paperwork isn't in place, you missed the checkin time,etc) well, you're stuck. Since you can't change it or refund it, well, you book a new seat and yours go unused.
3) Cheaper - Sometimes depending on the routing, taking a few extra legs may end up making the trip cheaper (e.g., Vancouver-Seattle-San Francisco - it may be cheaper to buy Vancouver-San Francisco via Seattle than Seattle-San Francisco direct, even if it's the same plane). In which case, if you want to board at Seattle, you simply ignore the Vancouver-Seattle route and take the second half of the flight, and save a few bucks.
Google Authenticator is free, SMS 2FA isn't wire-secure, but it prevents almost all account takeovers, and "nobody" uses them because they're not mandatory.
SMS is insecure. There's a good reason NIST doesn't recommend it - you assume the number is associated with a phone, when that is not necessarily the case. It's also REALLY easy to MITM. In fact, in most mobile operating systems, when you see it on the screen, it's already passed through many layers of software and third party apps that could easily have viewed and accessed your account.
Heck, a malicious Android app could intercept the SMS, let some third party access your account, then simply request a NEW SMS and pass that on. So you get a code but your account has already been accessed one or more times by the time you get the SMS.
And if you knew how the network really works, SMS is horrendously insecure. And it's used in a lot of situations internally so you can't even eliminate the many hands touching the text before the user even sees it (and many of those are suppressed, so once the OS handles them, they are no longer passed up).
The removal of MagSafe from the new MacBook Pro, even more so than the removal of all ports except USB-C, tells me that the people who are designing Apple laptops aren't actually using them anymore. Appearance has completely trumped functionality. I've replaced a lot of broken power jacks on other laptop brands, and I'm not going to buy a MacBook Pro with the same potential failure mechanism.
Except they're now gone into standardization. MagSafe is great, but it was proprietary, as were Apple's power packs.
Apple's now chosen to go standard, using USB Power Delivery. This means you're not tied to Apple's power packs anymore - you can use a Dell adapter if you want (and Apple adapters were around $80 or so).
So the loss of MagSafe needs to be considered with benefit of going standard. Also, any of the 4 ports can be used to charge - they all support USB Power Delivery, and this can mean you can use the more appropriate port for where you're at so if someone trips, it pulls straight out and not at an angle. Or if you bust one, you can use the other ports.
Oh yeah, many 3rd party companies make USB "MagSafe" style adapters too. It simply plugs into a USB-C port, and has a female USB-C port on the other end. Put your power adapter into the female end, stick the male end into your laptop, and instant fix.
Apple goes standard and people complain that a proprietary feature is missing. Apple goes proprietary because of some feature, and people complain they should be standard (lacking said feature). You can't win.
Yes, the App Store does use plain HTTP connections - these are for the files downloaded so they can be rapidly and easily cached by CDNs. This is fine since the files are already internally signed and once downloaded, the signatures are verified. About all you can do is replace one app with another, so instead of downloading Pokemon Go, you end up downloading Angry Birds. (But even the IDs can be verified so this doesn't happen). Using HTTPS can hide the details of the app from snoops, but that's all it really does.
Heck, even iOS updates are on plain HTTP servers, again, for easy edge caching by CDNs But again, there are higher layer protections for the data that makes the transport irrelevant. You can't corrupt the data (it's signed by Apple), you can only replace it with another Apple-signed file.
All the sensitive data (purchases, etc) are handed by HTTPS to protect the data, and it doesn't pay to cache it, either.
And the big reason for the delay would mean some big app owner hasn't fixed their apps yet. Perhaps it was Facebook or Microsoft Office or something.
Google has no interest in trying to reconstruct this conversation, regardless of how easy it may be to do so.
Google doesn't care about the contents of the message (they're encrypted, anyways). However, the metadata is still valuable information if you want to see relationships.
And relationships are valuable marketing information - Google has to share that information with all the other Alphabet companies now (because the new Alphabet privacy policy ensures it), so even though the metadata might not seem important, you can bet the other Alphabet companies doing marketing (like DoubleClick) are *very* interested in that data.
Knowing how people interact means advertisers can target like minded people. So Alice knowing Bob means Bob's preferences in stuff might be used to show ads to Alice in case she's interested too.
Google's more trustworthy, yes, but only because they're more willing to sell/share that information for marketing purposes than use it for oppression.
Google's not doing this for free, after all. They're getting SOMETHING out of it.
There's loads of good stuff. You probably have no imagination or just like complaining. Unless you have 5+ hours per day free to sit around and do nothing which you're trying desperately to fill there'll always be something good to watch.
Even better, these are SCRIPTED shows. It means the tyranny of reality shows is over! Sure there will be some reality shows - some are quite well produced, but it also means the traditional scripted storyline is back. It means viewers care less for crappy reality shows that were coming up of late and are appreciating fully scripted shows.
Yes, we'll always have reality shows, but hopefully we'll have good ones with high production values and less ones that are just people screeching at each other.
You are supposed to have health insurance or live an country with a working health care system. If you slip and fall on a sidewalk who do you sue? All the people in the city as it is a public property. That is insane. If you slip it is your own fault, unless there is grease and or other substance.
If the sidewalk is in front of a house, the home owner. Yes, the home owner is responsible for that stretch of sidewalk even if it is not on their property.
In fact, many places have laws stating the sidewalk must be cleared of snow, etc by 10am, or risk fines. People generally do it not because of the civil fine (which is on the order of $1000 or so), but because if someone slips and falls and needs treatment, then you're liable. And given lawyers, they may amp up the damages.
Same goes for a sidewalk in front of a business. (There is also a corollary - a business was forced to create a sidewalk per code, so there is a strip of concrete on the other side of a highway not attached to anything. It is a fully specified sidewalk, just not connected to anything). City hall and government owned properties too. Sometimes the best sidewalks are the ones near banks - cleared to bare concrete, and re-whitened with a thick layer of salt.
No, VR works, but the killer apps for it are racing, flight, and space flight simulation. But if you think Mario would suck in VR, I suggest you checkout the VR Playroom on Playstation. It's great. You are correct in that FPS/running games are completely stupid in VR. But the medium has a lot of promise in other titles.
In other words, a small market. Flight, racing and space sims are a tiny bit of the gaming market these days.
And sales have pretty much borne it out - after strong starts, sales have petered out. Even the PSVR sold out the first weekend, and then it's remained sitting on shelves ever since. And this is the PSVR, the cheapest of the VR lot that isn't smartphone or glorified smartphone based. Vive and Oculus have the PC problem as well (needing a fairly high end PC to work).
And it's not hard to see why - they combine the worst of 3D and things like Kinect. Instead of wearing special 3D glasses, you wear a heavy headset. And people weren't willing to move about for Kinect, so room-scale VR is already a losing proposition.
Sure, there's a lot of things you can do with VR, but it's likely those will be a niche item and the dozens of headsets you can get now will narrow substantially. Heck, PSVR may end up like all those Kinect games. Launched with lots of fanfare and everyone using it for everything... then practically nothing.
Reading a bit between the lines... he said desktops are important and then fails to mention the Mini or Pro. Don't think that bodes super well for those product lines â" at least, they're definitely not Top Priority. Hoping I'm reading too much into this; real professional workstations in the product lineup seems like a pretty important strategic spot for them if they're trying to appeal to the "media and development professionals" market.
They aren't. The Mac Mini and Mac Pro are terrible sellers, and always have been. The Mac Pro is such a bad seller, it's possible to make it in the US (it sports "Made in the USA" not just "assembled"). And no, for small runs, using a mass factory like Foxconn in China is actually terrible. You don't use a factory geared for millions (or hundreds of housands) to make hundreds.
The Mac Mini is also fairly bad. So much so that a Mac Mini colo had to meet with Tim Cook to ensure the line's continued existence.
If you think it's because the Mac Mini has a terrible processor - no. Intel's processor lineup for a particular socket was those series of processors, and Apple wasn't going to have two separate motherboards just to support a faster i7 - the returns couldn't justify the whole new design.
The only reason for the Mac Pro was video professionals. In the end, Apple decided that it wasn't worth serving the needs of not-very-many-people and target the much larger crowd of not-so-professional video editors.
It seems weird to say it is a business, but as long as the criminals don't screw over the victims, the victims know they can pay and not lose anything.
Actually, it's one where failure collapses the entire business model. Because right now the criminals are offering LOTS of support - they know the people may not know what bitcoin is so they will walk people through how to getting the payment down on the phone, even offering discounts and such.
Because they know the only way people will pay is if they trust the people will unlock their data. The instant someone doesn't will result in complete loss of trust and make it impossible for future campaigns to work.
This has resulted in a very odd situation where their support lines offer some very helpful support akin to Amazon. There are stories where a mother sobbed uncontrollably because she only raised about 80% of the money and was going to lose all her files. The criminals took pity and just took what she had and unlocked all her files.
Is this just some advertising for Dolby? They're a nightmare to deal with from a licensing and certification perspective. Give your money and time to DTS and Fraunhofer and stop supporting this monster.
Unfortunately, only Dolby Atmos is mature enough to properly work - DTS:X (DTS's equivalent) is completely immature, so much so that instead of processing the sound objects like it should, it's still relying a lot on pre-rendered sound streams for the extra channels. (Atmos is processing objects and adding them to the appropriate sound stream).
If Nikon, Sony, and Canon (for example) handled it like the MPAA, we'd end up with: the encryption can only legally be unlocked on licensed products (in certain countries) and don't allow making copies of the files. Instead, you'll need to buy a license per-format to export it to the file you want, such as an iPhone or an HD TV. Ensure that the file can only be exported in the country the license was purchased in and may not be moved to another country. Make some kind of claim of "you're not really buying our camera's - you're buying a license to use them" - then sue for 10x the actual damages for any studio/reporter/etc that makes copies, backups, or anything else related to making a film that infringes on the license.
No, they'd make it so you need to run a proprietary application to decrypt the photos. Sure ti starts out free with the camera on the software disc, but soon you'll be paying $30 for it, and the pros will have to pay $300/year to license the decryption software. Then another $15 for each camera you use.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, the problem is more and more stuff is shipping half-baked. And it's shipped that way often because it's complicated, and practical hardware construction means the software has to be done way earlier - imagine you're producing a product for release during the holidays (say a late November release). This means the shipping for the product starts late October, and your packing starts in late September. This means everything has to be built/printed/etc by late August. Hardware production will probably take a month, so everything has to be set by late July. You probably want to QA, so let's give a few weeks for that, making end of June you have to have all the software ready. And you know what? Your first customer won't have it in their hands for another 5 months!
That 5 months could easily be another 20-25% of development time which could be used to squash further bugs and implement lower priority features. Or more fully utilize the hardware - perhaps a feature was implemented using the basic features of the hardware, leaving the advanced features unutilized until later (e.g., like traffic radar).
So yes, there's a lot of updates flying around.
As for USB, it changes because demands force it to. Phones used a custom connector, then they started USB mini-B because that was all that was defined. People demanded more, and the USB Forum added the Micro connectors to the mix. And all was happy until people demanded that USB get something like Apple's connector, which implemented *gasp*, the ability to insert it either way. (Proprietary isn't all bad - you need it in order to try some things that the standard might not have cared about, like a symmetrical connector).
And now we have a handful of USB connectors. Oddly, in the same amount of time, Apple has gone through just two different connectors for their devices - 30 pin dock, and current Lightning (and everyone bitches because they changed it, but no one's bitching when they went from Mini to Micro to USB-C).
Thankfully, USB-C is fairly future-proof, so that should be it for the next little while.
As for your truck, really, no upgrades? No radio, no GPS, no rear camera? (Rear cameras are becoming mandatory because they eliminate the rear blind spot, which on a truck is huge). Unless you can look out both sing mirrors at the same time and out the back to make sure some kid didn't sneak behind you...
It was not random chance. There were several incidences where the replacements also burned up, and even if Samsung shipped a million, that's still a lot higher than other smartphones. If we estimate that Samsung shipped about 3 million before the 35+ cases (before the US ship date) and another 100 when they did the recall when they shipped another say, 7 million, so 100 out of 10 million units is 1 out of 100,000.
If we take an iPhone 7 series, Apple moves roughly 10M a month on average. That would imply every month, we have 100 iPhones exploding. Which would be either big news, or it happens so often it's no longer news (given an iPhone sells around 70M units, that would be 7,000 phones exploding).
We do know of maybe a handful of iPhones exploding, which is at least a couple of orders of magnitude less than the Note 7.
Even the Samsung S7 which probably shipped twice as many units before the Note 7 even launched (say, 20M), that would mean there would be 200 units exploding, which we also know is not the case.
So it's not random chance. There is a legitimate design flaw that makes it happen well above the industry average.
Strangle the consumer. They chose 16:9 screens for one simple reason - because of TV production, they're super cheap. A 1080P LCD is super cheap because they're used in TVs as well, as well as the video processors and scalers.
16:10 require their own manufacture of screens and video processor chips that aren't manufactured in huge quantities. Thus they cost more.
Anyone complaining about 16:9 panels simply is being cheap - 16:9 is cheap because of mass production of TVs and its electronics. You can buy 16:10 displays easily - just be prepared to pay twice as much - a 24" 1080p is easily $100-150, while a 24" 16:10 (1920x1200) is $250-300.
Well, the reason is several.
First, in places where there's electricity theft, smart meters allow for detection - if you measure the power consumed in a neighbourhood, the sum of the power consumed by each house should tally up. If not, then they investigate.
As for seeing how much you consume, it's actually easy. Most meters have a "virtual wheel" or a blinking light. The virtual wheel is on the display and just moves like the old wheel does, though it is a bit smaller. If it's a light, then each blink represents a fixed unit of kWh - you need to refer to the meter to find the metrological number which tells you how much kWh each pulse represents.
And if not that, a log into the website often can tell you your current usage. Some even sell you a device that lets you remotely monitor the meter - which can tell you your current usage, the current reading, etc.
Most smart meters are properly designed - the reason it's a light is because the measurement board just gives a pulse every fixed kWh consumed and that's the only communications available. The electronics board tallies up the count and displays it. Hack the meter and ...? There's no connection to the measurement board - it just receives pulses.
As for the communications options, some use a proprietary WiFi that's 802.11g-based, but at 900MHz, others are using a 3G cellular network. Others use regular WiFi. So "da evil smart meter waves" are basically cordless phones/garage door/etc (900MHz ISM shared military radar), cellphone or WiFi.
Granted, there are probably some options used in other parts of the world - though a full power disconnect is rare because of the cost of ab appropriate contactor (usually either a liquid or gas insulated contactor) but those are usually separate devices due to cost.
Most smart meters are like this. They consist of two boards - a measurement board and an electronics board. The measurement board consists of current transformers and measures the current draw. It provides a pulse every fractional kWh or so. That pulse goes to the electronics board which is responsible for tallying the count, and keeping the count and communications. They also often have a way for representing the pulse to give you the "virtual wheel" or a pulsing light. The latter can be converted to kWh consumed using the metrological number printed on the meter which tells you how much kWh each pulse represents.
Fires from smart meters is almost always caused by corroded contacts - while meters only have a 10 year calibration, most meters are never changed since the building was built and exposed to the elements. So when the house was new, the meter box was new and the meter base was new and shiny. 20 years later, they replace the electric meter and the meter base is completely corroded. Remove the old meter, plug in the new one, and there's a big resistance due to the corrosion, causing lots of heat and eventually a fire.
Flurry is a mobile analytics company. They're well established - they've been around at least as long as the Apple App Store and many apps use them for app analytics (usage, crash logging, etc).
They're embedded in a ton of popular apps which is why they're able to get you information like phone activation data.
Any simple firewall for any phone would tell you all the apps that report to flurry. Android requires root, iOS requires jailbreaking.
The problem is, iOS users are more likely to pay for the app than Android users. With Android it may e downloaded 100 times more than iOS in 3 days, but make 1/10th as much as most users are cheap.
The good news though is the online only requirement will probably be hacked within a few hours by same Android users (the online only requirement is for anti-piracy purposes, which is odd on iOS since iOS piracy is extremely low - about 10% max. On Android, it's easily 90%, so there's a greater push to pirate it or hack it so it works for free).
I believe Internet access for government employees was cut off a little while ago.
That's right, no internet access anymore for government employees.
Not that it matters - there's the Great Firewall of Singapore to deal with. One that probably tracks you trying to access illicit materials and gets you arrested. Unlike say, the Chinese firewall which just blocks.
One thing that struck me while I was there was how little there was to do. It's all so highly regulated that it's just work, shopping and few other highly controlled activities. If that's all you do, great, it's a great country. But if you want to do some recreation, camping, or other activity that the government doesn't allow, well, it's sort of disallowed.
Don't get me wrong, the place is very efficient - public transit is great - it runs on time (and when it doesn't, people get fired) and all that - no power outages or other things. But it's also sort of boring. Yes, maybe 60% of Americans would probably fit in if all you do is work, shop, and do a few things like movies and such. But it really lacks any sort of "community" feel even though everyone takes care of family and such. It's more of a "I take care of my own family and relatives. You have no relation to me, go away. Why do you even say hello to me? I don't know y ou. Go away."
Well, Samsung had a design flaw that the law of large numbers meant turning a rare event into a probable one.
CR works by going to the store and buying a random unit off the shelf, like a consumer would. And I'm pretty sure they probably buy more than one to ensure consistency.
CR's testing is largely scientific - repeated tests doing the same thing to a test standard, but again, they do what typical consumers would test.
The only real question is did CR do something to potentially invalidate the test or maybe their app runs completely oddly. The best test would be external - besides a bit of set up it runs automatically without requiring anything more than a user or apparatus pushing buttons. If they're using a test script, perhaps the script is doing something that is screwing up the test results.
Last year, Amazon stopped selling the Apple TV because "it doesn't support Amazon Video". Except Amazon refused to write an app for the Apple TV (it exists for iPhones and iPads, but not AppleTV).
So perhaps we should sanction Amazon too?
It's just a crappy IoT thing that Apple stopped selling. I'm sure you can find it at Best Buy if you really really really needed it.Just because Apple refuses to sell you one, doesn't mean you can't find it at Best Buy, or Amazon or any other place that sells the things.
It would be anti-trust if Apple removed the apps from the App Store, or recinded the "Made for iPhone" branding so it no longer worked.
Don't forget the limited support - Google says it will have 2 years of software updates, plus a final year of security updates. And that's it.
Their old Nexus line had support for 18 months AFTER it stops going on sale. In fact, the 5X/6P was released because the 5/6 were coming up to the 18 month mark
Heck, Apple has longer support for iOS - granted, after the first couple of years it's mostly just security updates, but still, most phones got at least 3-4 years or support or more.
Given it costs as much as an iPhone, I would expect iPhone levels of support.
That's what they claim happens. You buy one of their DVDs for $20, and when you want to watch it, you have them put your disc in their DVD player and the output of which is streamed to you. The objectionable parts are mysteriously edited out (either through fastforwarding and blanking the outputs or other mechanism). When you're done, the DVD is returned back to your vault, and you can sell it back as used for $19.
The question becomes does it become important who does it or not? Because anyone can do it now with a DVD player and a Slingbox and you're just having someone else do it for you.
Yeah, you'd think the folks at Alphabet (DoubleClick's parent company) would know a thing or two about how to optimize for the Internet.
On the other hand, now DoubleClick knows everything you did on other Alphabet sites, like Google, YouTube, etc.
1) Missed connections. This happens way more often than you think - either the connection is impossible, delays, or longer than normal flight can easily cause a connection to be missed.
2) Cheap seats - a lot of these are non-refundable, and non-flexible (and thus, cheap). If you need to change it for any reason, (perhaps your paperwork isn't in place, you missed the checkin time,etc) well, you're stuck. Since you can't change it or refund it, well, you book a new seat and yours go unused.
3) Cheaper - Sometimes depending on the routing, taking a few extra legs may end up making the trip cheaper (e.g., Vancouver-Seattle-San Francisco - it may be cheaper to buy Vancouver-San Francisco via Seattle than Seattle-San Francisco direct, even if it's the same plane). In which case, if you want to board at Seattle, you simply ignore the Vancouver-Seattle route and take the second half of the flight, and save a few bucks.
SMS is insecure. There's a good reason NIST doesn't recommend it - you assume the number is associated with a phone, when that is not necessarily the case. It's also REALLY easy to MITM. In fact, in most mobile operating systems, when you see it on the screen, it's already passed through many layers of software and third party apps that could easily have viewed and accessed your account.
Heck, a malicious Android app could intercept the SMS, let some third party access your account, then simply request a NEW SMS and pass that on. So you get a code but your account has already been accessed one or more times by the time you get the SMS.
And if you knew how the network really works, SMS is horrendously insecure. And it's used in a lot of situations internally so you can't even eliminate the many hands touching the text before the user even sees it (and many of those are suppressed, so once the OS handles them, they are no longer passed up).
Yes, the App Store does use plain HTTP connections - these are for the files downloaded so they can be rapidly and easily cached by CDNs. This is fine since the files are already internally signed and once downloaded, the signatures are verified. About all you can do is replace one app with another, so instead of downloading Pokemon Go, you end up downloading Angry Birds. (But even the IDs can be verified so this doesn't happen). Using HTTPS can hide the details of the app from snoops, but that's all it really does.
Heck, even iOS updates are on plain HTTP servers, again, for easy edge caching by CDNs But again, there are higher layer protections for the data that makes the transport irrelevant. You can't corrupt the data (it's signed by Apple), you can only replace it with another Apple-signed file.
All the sensitive data (purchases, etc) are handed by HTTPS to protect the data, and it doesn't pay to cache it, either.
And the big reason for the delay would mean some big app owner hasn't fixed their apps yet. Perhaps it was Facebook or Microsoft Office or something.
Google doesn't care about the contents of the message (they're encrypted, anyways). However, the metadata is still valuable information if you want to see relationships.
And relationships are valuable marketing information - Google has to share that information with all the other Alphabet companies now (because the new Alphabet privacy policy ensures it), so even though the metadata might not seem important, you can bet the other Alphabet companies doing marketing (like DoubleClick) are *very* interested in that data.
Knowing how people interact means advertisers can target like minded people. So Alice knowing Bob means Bob's preferences in stuff might be used to show ads to Alice in case she's interested too.
Google's more trustworthy, yes, but only because they're more willing to sell/share that information for marketing purposes than use it for oppression.
Google's not doing this for free, after all. They're getting SOMETHING out of it.
Even better, these are SCRIPTED shows. It means the tyranny of reality shows is over! Sure there will be some reality shows - some are quite well produced, but it also means the traditional scripted storyline is back. It means viewers care less for crappy reality shows that were coming up of late and are appreciating fully scripted shows.
Yes, we'll always have reality shows, but hopefully we'll have good ones with high production values and less ones that are just people screeching at each other.
If the sidewalk is in front of a house, the home owner. Yes, the home owner is responsible for that stretch of sidewalk even if it is not on their property.
In fact, many places have laws stating the sidewalk must be cleared of snow, etc by 10am, or risk fines. People generally do it not because of the civil fine (which is on the order of $1000 or so), but because if someone slips and falls and needs treatment, then you're liable. And given lawyers, they may amp up the damages.
Same goes for a sidewalk in front of a business. (There is also a corollary - a business was forced to create a sidewalk per code, so there is a strip of concrete on the other side of a highway not attached to anything. It is a fully specified sidewalk, just not connected to anything). City hall and government owned properties too. Sometimes the best sidewalks are the ones near banks - cleared to bare concrete, and re-whitened with a thick layer of salt.
In other words, a small market. Flight, racing and space sims are a tiny bit of the gaming market these days.
And sales have pretty much borne it out - after strong starts, sales have petered out. Even the PSVR sold out the first weekend, and then it's remained sitting on shelves ever since. And this is the PSVR, the cheapest of the VR lot that isn't smartphone or glorified smartphone based. Vive and Oculus have the PC problem as well (needing a fairly high end PC to work).
And it's not hard to see why - they combine the worst of 3D and things like Kinect. Instead of wearing special 3D glasses, you wear a heavy headset. And people weren't willing to move about for Kinect, so room-scale VR is already a losing proposition.
Sure, there's a lot of things you can do with VR, but it's likely those will be a niche item and the dozens of headsets you can get now will narrow substantially. Heck, PSVR may end up like all those Kinect games. Launched with lots of fanfare and everyone using it for everything... then practically nothing.
They aren't. The Mac Mini and Mac Pro are terrible sellers, and always have been. The Mac Pro is such a bad seller, it's possible to make it in the US (it sports "Made in the USA" not just "assembled"). And no, for small runs, using a mass factory like Foxconn in China is actually terrible. You don't use a factory geared for millions (or hundreds of housands) to make hundreds.
The Mac Mini is also fairly bad. So much so that a Mac Mini colo had to meet with Tim Cook to ensure the line's continued existence.
If you think it's because the Mac Mini has a terrible processor - no. Intel's processor lineup for a particular socket was those series of processors, and Apple wasn't going to have two separate motherboards just to support a faster i7 - the returns couldn't justify the whole new design.
The only reason for the Mac Pro was video professionals. In the end, Apple decided that it wasn't worth serving the needs of not-very-many-people and target the much larger crowd of not-so-professional video editors.
Actually, it's one where failure collapses the entire business model. Because right now the criminals are offering LOTS of support - they know the people may not know what bitcoin is so they will walk people through how to getting the payment down on the phone, even offering discounts and such.
Because they know the only way people will pay is if they trust the people will unlock their data. The instant someone doesn't will result in complete loss of trust and make it impossible for future campaigns to work.
This has resulted in a very odd situation where their support lines offer some very helpful support akin to Amazon. There are stories where a mother sobbed uncontrollably because she only raised about 80% of the money and was going to lose all her files. The criminals took pity and just took what she had and unlocked all her files.
Unfortunately, only Dolby Atmos is mature enough to properly work - DTS:X (DTS's equivalent) is completely immature, so much so that instead of processing the sound objects like it should, it's still relying a lot on pre-rendered sound streams for the extra channels. (Atmos is processing objects and adding them to the appropriate sound stream).
No, they'd make it so you need to run a proprietary application to decrypt the photos. Sure ti starts out free with the camera on the software disc, but soon you'll be paying $30 for it, and the pros will have to pay $300/year to license the decryption software. Then another $15 for each camera you use.
And it'll be so it only works with their camera.