> Adblock developers have previously tried to monetarize the addon in very shady ways.
That may be true, but I do not see anything wrong with this idea. Drawing a line between ads that ok decent and ads that are not is long overdue. On a new system I often browser the Internet for a while without Adblock, until I hit a really annoying ad, and that's it. We all know the problems
* pop over * pan over / expand * following you * pop under * sound * annimation * full page ads * close button opens another ad
So far Adblock does not discriminate, so it does not hurt these specifically.
A pop-up blocker does, but I still have to find a bank that works with pop-up blocker enabled. Banking IT is so 80s.
> Apparently the iPad is more suitable for this than the competition.
Out of the box, yes. But with Android you could customise the system for a specific use, such as teaching, maybe giving the teacher control over the tablets while they are in class.
I think we are just at the very beginning of this process, and whatever we do now will look very crude very soon.
> However, Slashdot historically has had a bias against things that are popular--a common quality of al tech crowds, really.
I completely agree, but as you say the trend is not just visible on Slashdot - it also happens on other tech communities.
And it is really quite obvious: Samsung copies design that is successful, and they do that deliberately. In the Eastern societies that is a form of appreciation, in the West it is illegal. Tough luck, you should have asked your lawyers first (and you should try not just to copy the look, but also the seamless feel of the software, which unfortunately is still preventing me from every buying anything Samsung again).
Which shows that they are lying - because a new phone should require a lot more integration work and testing than an upgrade for an existing phone. It is just a question of priorities.
And an incompetent process, too. Because competent developers would separate their changes, and integrate them only with a few hooks, so that they are easy to port. Unfortunately, competent software developers seems to be completely absent from the Android phone market.
And guess what makes the difference. Right, Windows XP *is still supported*. Support runs until 2014!
Google on the other hand has the explicit policy of not supplying any previous version of Android with security updates. Whether they timely patch the latest version also remains debatable, because they keep the list of security issues confidential. Google has a long way to go in this matter to even reach the standard of Microsoft.
So far my experience is that the more a manufacturer meddles with Android, the worse it gets. And this is not because Android is perfect, but (my conclusion) because manufacturer are mostly incompetent when it comes to software.
Indeed, and the reason is very simple: as a normal user on a normal installation you do not want an app to be able to lock down the computer. That would be a DOS vulnerability, and I assume that Ubuntu is reasonably free of those.
So you need a special installation - a special user by itself is probably not enough.
To be honest, who in a right mind would be interested in a Froyo (!) tablet with smartphone resolution (yes, my basement price smartphone has the same resolution) for a price rather close to an iPad? It is not a selling proposition, and it took Dell a very long time to realise that. And don't mention cost - the customer does not care one bit about cost.
> The fact that this software is so hidden from the user,
Exactly - this is a clandestine operation, and CarrierIQ has taken several steps to try to keep it such. "If you haven't done anything wrong, you don't mind being found out, hm?" Unfortunately CarrierIQ has all the hallmarks of something fishy going on.
And here comes the good part: the customer (we) have the right to go just with a rumour and vote with our feet. We need no investigate, no due process, no shred of tangible evidence. A suspicion is enough to change our behaviour, and there is nothing they can do. We have the power.
(And I'll better stop here before I write "We are the 99%.")
Awesome. Cheap it may be, but where else do you get a 800x480 AMOLED display (first revision only, mine has it)? And name another phone that is as easy to unlock and root. For me it was the phone I had been waiting for. A half decent camera and ARMv7 would make it perfect, but unfortunately there is precious little perfection in the world.
> (Customers aren't charged for the upload, and it's disabled when the phone is roaming.)"
Are we sure of that? I would be rather surprised...
> How Carrier IQ was wrongly accused of keylogging
Nice try, but factually wrong. Carrier IQ *is* keylogging, and that has been demonstrated. It is not clear whether the app is storing the data, but there is no evidence to the contrary (200kB can easily contain all your keystrokes for the day). And since communication is encrypted, nobody except Carrier IQ can proof that they are not. They have put a lot of spin on it, and acted in any other way like they were found out. They have not provided any evidence that keystrokes are not transmitted.
> Many older people (I constantly watch my parents do this) type their searches into where one would normally put the URL.
It is logical, isn't it? There is one field where you type stuff in. There could be two buttons, one for Go, one for Search, but to be honest my browser can figure that our pretty nicely. The separate search box in IE is just retarded.
Security wise - yes, most Android installations are pretty terrible. Especially if you are stuck with Froyo or some other outdated version.
There are only two real options: Nexus and Cyanogenmod. Everything else is pretty much unacceptable (especially Samsung, as nice as the hardware may be).
> Google's proposal that motherboards should need only 12VDC made more sense.
True, but you cannot run a data-centre on 12V, especially not with current copper prices. For distribution, you need x00 V.
I would say: get a three phase rectifier (or two phase in the US?), and see whatever near constant DC voltage comes out of that. In Europe that will give you about 550V with a slight 150 Hz distortion. Step it down to 12V near the board, and down to 0.8V or whatever on the board.
The key advantage of three phase rectification is that you automatically get a very high power factor, and you can avoid costly (and expensive) power factor compensation.
Ideally you would run the board with more than 12V, too. But that requires different hard disks, different board, different fans etc, and there is no clear competing standard. 28V, 35V, 42V, 48V - they all advantages and niches.
> I saw a comment on another website speculating that the NSA might be involved with this. I'm not nearly enough of a tinfoil hat wearer to accept that without any evidence
Haha, good luck finding the evidence. The NSA is trying really hard to avoid leaving any hard evidence behind.
Personally I think this has NSA written all over it. It is a software clearly designed to spy on customers, although I tend to believe that it is not usually report back the findings. Of course that is only a switch that you have to flip... and who would like to be able to do that? Bingo.
Right, but it didn't happen quickly. These is only one model of a hybrid hard disk available, which makes it unsuitable for any serious use in mass production. Also Seagate now tell us that their previous version was actually crap, and the new one is much much better. The price is lower but still high - about 100 dollars for 8 GB of flash. For that money you could get an SSD with 48 GB - and put all your system data on it.
This is a niche product, designed for laptops with only one disk slot that require both fast access and high storage. It is heavily compromised in both aspects, and the price is outrageous.
> And any open source project that releases major new versions without source is called a "bait and switch" project.
Well, yes - Google is in it for the money, not for the community. Many companies operate on the same principle: you can get the source under an open source license, but you can get it sooner if you pay.
I was a bit miffed about Gingerbread, but now that Google has released the source code for ICS in a very timely manner, all is well again for the open source community. Now if only they could keep a decent log of security issues... of course the community could step up to the plate and do it based on the source, but without the original report that can never be quite as comprehensive.
> The trouble is that SLRs(while undoubtedly extremely capable) tend to suffer very heavily from 'the best camera is the camera you are carrying' syndrome.
Spot on. Get the best camera you can afford and you can carry around all the time. A camera will not help you learn how to take pictures if it is sitting at home on the shelf.
That being said, DSLRs are great. It takes some time to figure out how to work all the options, but IMHO it is absolutely worth it. And a good viewfinder is the best feature for learning there is.
> Outside a narrow time window, older media isn't readable without extreme measures.
That used to be the case, but the PC changed the game completely. You can get a box that is a few years old, connect a 5 1/4" drive (I saw one just recently), and it should still be able to the read the disks of the original IBM PC. You will struggle with some of the early MFM hard disks the XT used, but even modern motherboards still come with the AT connector. Once your data is on CD-ROM or DVD-ROM you should be fine for decades to come.
Now I am not saying that media will always last that long. Especially floppy disks are hit or miss after a few years, and optical media degrade, too. But the issue of format incompatibilities is much less several than it used to be, since standards and "de facto" "standards" have revolutionised (commoditised?) the IT industry.
Slashdot Mirror
> Adblock developers have previously tried to monetarize the addon in very shady ways.
That may be true, but I do not see anything wrong with this idea. Drawing a line between ads that ok decent and ads that are not is long overdue. On a new system I often browser the Internet for a while without Adblock, until I hit a really annoying ad, and that's it. We all know the problems
* pop over
* pan over / expand
* following you
* pop under
* sound
* annimation
* full page ads
* close button opens another ad
So far Adblock does not discriminate, so it does not hurt these specifically.
A pop-up blocker does, but I still have to find a bank that works with pop-up blocker enabled. Banking IT is so 80s.
> Apparently the iPad is more suitable for this than the competition.
Out of the box, yes. But with Android you could customise the system for a specific use, such as teaching, maybe giving the teacher control over the tablets while they are in class.
I think we are just at the very beginning of this process, and whatever we do now will look very crude very soon.
> However, Slashdot historically has had a bias against things that are popular--a common quality of al tech crowds, really.
I completely agree, but as you say the trend is not just visible on Slashdot - it also happens on other tech communities.
And it is really quite obvious: Samsung copies design that is successful, and they do that deliberately. In the Eastern societies that is a form of appreciation, in the West it is illegal. Tough luck, you should have asked your lawyers first (and you should try not just to copy the look, but also the seamless feel of the software, which unfortunately is still preventing me from every buying anything Samsung again).
Which shows that they are lying - because a new phone should require a lot more integration work and testing than an upgrade for an existing phone. It is just a question of priorities.
And an incompetent process, too. Because competent developers would separate their changes, and integrate them only with a few hooks, so that they are easy to port. Unfortunately, competent software developers seems to be completely absent from the Android phone market.
> Windows XP, which made its debut in 2001?
And guess what makes the difference. Right, Windows XP *is still supported*. Support runs until 2014!
Google on the other hand has the explicit policy of not supplying any previous version of Android with security updates. Whether they timely patch the latest version also remains debatable, because they keep the list of security issues confidential. Google has a long way to go in this matter to even reach the standard of Microsoft.
> He believes this fosters creativity
So far my experience is that the more a manufacturer meddles with Android, the worse it gets. And this is not because Android is perfect, but (my conclusion) because manufacturer are mostly incompetent when it comes to software.
> Something is wrong with a chance to score a tablet for $99?
Not at all, and now you have the advantage of getting an Alpha of Android, too. Not from HP, mind you.
Indeed, and the reason is very simple: as a normal user on a normal installation you do not want an app to be able to lock down the computer. That would be a DOS vulnerability, and I assume that Ubuntu is reasonably free of those.
So you need a special installation - a special user by itself is probably not enough.
To be honest, who in a right mind would be interested in a Froyo (!) tablet with smartphone resolution (yes, my basement price smartphone has the same resolution) for a price rather close to an iPad? It is not a selling proposition, and it took Dell a very long time to realise that. And don't mention cost - the customer does not care one bit about cost.
> The fact that this software is so hidden from the user,
Exactly - this is a clandestine operation, and CarrierIQ has taken several steps to try to keep it such. "If you haven't done anything wrong, you don't mind being found out, hm?" Unfortunately CarrierIQ has all the hallmarks of something fishy going on.
And here comes the good part: the customer (we) have the right to go just with a rumour and vote with our feet. We need no investigate, no due process, no shred of tangible evidence. A suspicion is enough to change our behaviour, and there is nothing they can do. We have the power.
(And I'll better stop here before I write "We are the 99%.")
Awesome. Cheap it may be, but where else do you get a 800x480 AMOLED display (first revision only, mine has it)? And name another phone that is as easy to unlock and root. For me it was the phone I had been waiting for. A half decent camera and ARMv7 would make it perfect, but unfortunately there is precious little perfection in the world.
Not if it has 1000Nm of torque while making a nice noise ...
> (Customers aren't charged for the upload, and it's disabled when the phone is roaming.)"
Are we sure of that? I would be rather surprised...
> How Carrier IQ was wrongly accused of keylogging
Nice try, but factually wrong. Carrier IQ *is* keylogging, and that has been demonstrated. It is not clear whether the app is storing the data, but there is no evidence to the contrary (200kB can easily contain all your keystrokes for the day). And since communication is encrypted, nobody except Carrier IQ can proof that they are not. They have put a lot of spin on it, and acted in any other way like they were found out. They have not provided any evidence that keystrokes are not transmitted.
> Many older people (I constantly watch my parents do this) type their searches into where one would normally put the URL.
It is logical, isn't it? There is one field where you type stuff in. There could be two buttons, one for Go, one for Search, but to be honest my browser can figure that our pretty nicely. The separate search box in IE is just retarded.
Security wise - yes, most Android installations are pretty terrible. Especially if you are stuck with Froyo or some other outdated version.
There are only two real options: Nexus and Cyanogenmod. Everything else is pretty much unacceptable (especially Samsung, as nice as the hardware may be).
> The reason that Chrome's plugins don't is that Chrome plugins simply aren't allowed to do a lot of the things that Firefox extensions do.
Yes, but Firefox is changing that with the Jetpack API. Which brings us right back on topic: Firefox is trying to be Chrome, and it can only lose.
> Google's proposal that motherboards should need only 12VDC made more sense.
True, but you cannot run a data-centre on 12V, especially not with current copper prices. For distribution, you need x00 V.
I would say: get a three phase rectifier (or two phase in the US?), and see whatever near constant DC voltage comes out of that. In Europe that will give you about 550V with a slight 150 Hz distortion. Step it down to 12V near the board, and down to 0.8V or whatever on the board.
The key advantage of three phase rectification is that you automatically get a very high power factor, and you can avoid costly (and expensive) power factor compensation.
Ideally you would run the board with more than 12V, too. But that requires different hard disks, different board, different fans etc, and there is no clear competing standard. 28V, 35V, 42V, 48V - they all advantages and niches.
> I saw a comment on another website speculating that the NSA might be involved with this. I'm not nearly enough of a tinfoil hat wearer to accept that without any evidence
Haha, good luck finding the evidence. The NSA is trying really hard to avoid leaving any hard evidence behind.
Personally I think this has NSA written all over it. It is a software clearly designed to spy on customers, although I tend to believe that it is not usually report back the findings. Of course that is only a switch that you have to flip... and who would like to be able to do that? Bingo.
Right, but it didn't happen quickly. These is only one model of a hybrid hard disk available, which makes it unsuitable for any serious use in mass production. Also Seagate now tell us that their previous version was actually crap, and the new one is much much better. The price is lower but still high - about 100 dollars for 8 GB of flash. For that money you could get an SSD with 48 GB - and put all your system data on it.
This is a niche product, designed for laptops with only one disk slot that require both fast access and high storage. It is heavily compromised in both aspects, and the price is outrageous.
> How touch friendly are Gnome and KDE--and their applications?
Not at all. I was running an Ubuntu chroot under WebOS to get at least some apps. And usability is absolutely terrible.
> And any open source project that releases major new versions without source is called a "bait and switch" project.
Well, yes - Google is in it for the money, not for the community. Many companies operate on the same principle: you can get the source under an open source license, but you can get it sooner if you pay.
I was a bit miffed about Gingerbread, but now that Google has released the source code for ICS in a very timely manner, all is well again for the open source community. Now if only they could keep a decent log of security issues... of course the community could step up to the plate and do it based on the source, but without the original report that can never be quite as comprehensive.
> The trouble is that SLRs(while undoubtedly extremely capable) tend to suffer very heavily from 'the best camera is the camera you are carrying' syndrome.
Spot on. Get the best camera you can afford and you can carry around all the time. A camera will not help you learn how to take pictures if it is sitting at home on the shelf.
That being said, DSLRs are great. It takes some time to figure out how to work all the options, but IMHO it is absolutely worth it. And a good viewfinder is the best feature for learning there is.
It was a bit later, but NEC produced the V20 and V30, very worthy competitors to the early Intel x86 CPUs.
> Outside a narrow time window, older media isn't readable without extreme measures.
That used to be the case, but the PC changed the game completely. You can get a box that is a few years old, connect a 5 1/4" drive (I saw one just recently), and it should still be able to the read the disks of the original IBM PC. You will struggle with some of the early MFM hard disks the XT used, but even modern motherboards still come with the AT connector. Once your data is on CD-ROM or DVD-ROM you should be fine for decades to come.
Now I am not saying that media will always last that long. Especially floppy disks are hit or miss after a few years, and optical media degrade, too. But the issue of format incompatibilities is much less several than it used to be, since standards and "de facto" "standards" have revolutionised (commoditised?) the IT industry.