It is about time. The old goal of "protecting the system from the user" is obsolete. A PC is owned by the user - the user is not the enemy.
Instead, the data needs protecting from rogue applications. Not everybody will recognise a trojan even if the writing is on the wall, and even an expert may not have the resources to be sure. Sandboxing removes any doubt - an application has to say what it wants to do.
So for once, this is actually a useful development.
A contact is a legal agreement between two parties. Living parties. If an auction ends and the seller is dead, no contract is formed. Whether you can convince ebay of that is a different question.
The same principle applies to most other contracts: health insurance is automatically terminated, you just have to tell them that it happened. Messing around with the deceased's credentials is not going to solve the problem, unless it is a trivial matter.
Of course it is worth thinking about those trivial matters, too. Facebook account - could be useful at least to inform some friends. Email is certainly useful, just to monitor what is coming in. I would recommend a sealed envelop in a safe place - and if you are paranoid encrypt it with an agreed one-time pad.
As far as I understand DRAM has been getting faster, smaller, and cheaper, while Memristors are "around the corner" for some time now. And the only MRAM you can buy is a 4 mbit chip made in decade old technology that costs a ridiculous amount of money.
I would like better memory as much as anybody here, but I just don't see Memristors delivering.
> In the PC space there is no road to real innovation.
There is a lot of space for innovation, or at least of improvement.
Create systems that seamless sleep and wake up again within a reasonable amount of time (ideally 150ms or less). Integrate (or add) a back-up solution like time machine. Preconfigure PCs so that you just have to plug them in and they work. Push hard disk trays - if your PC breaks, just take the disk and put it in a new one. Put basic hard disk network access in the BIOS / UEFI. Build a silent SFF or All-in-1 PC that doesn't suck. Design compartmentalised PCs for more than one work place. Ship keyboards with USB plugs. Add mesh wifi for improved coverage.
The opportunities for innovation are there, but HP is not using them.
> Why would I want it to work if I powered the phone is off?
Because you still have to go to work, even if you turn off your phone to get a good night of sleep, or if you battery is dead? My 7 year old Sony works that way, and I bet most other phones. If you don't want to get an alarm, don't program an alarm:-)
> You have to remember that your company has no loyalty to you.
It really depends. I would say that most companies probably have less loyalty for you than you might think, but I only say that because I have also seen a few companies that genuinely care for their employees. The difference is like night and day. Think about it, and if you are honest, you will know on which side you are. The decision to stay or leave should follow logically.
> This way, multiple carriers can share frequencies, even if they use different communication protocols (CDMA/TDMA/GSM).
You should read Comms 101, and it should all become clear. You can mix different protocols, but not different encodings. CDMA uses orthogonal codes to divide the spectrum into channels, TDMA uses time slots. Or, to use an analogy: you cannot have horizontal and vertical stripes at the same time. That would be checkered, and in communications terms that is chaos.
But there is great potential in "white space" spectrum. That is the spectrum used by TV stations far away, and there are always some gaps to avoid overlaps of neighbouring stations on the same frequency. There is potentially some low level interference, and you have to limit the power output, but otherwise it is perfectly usable. In fact if you check the spectrum, only a small part is actively being used at any one time.
Doesn't matter - by definition they are mis-selling this plan to 5% of the users. That might be normal in the telecom industry, but in general it a pretty bad record. And once the 5% have left because of the changes, the next 5% are in trouble...
> If you send it as an RTF they shouldn't have any trouble opening it.
This is not Office, this is a document scanning system - and it may very well have issues with RTF. That being said, I found RTF to be generally less well supported on pretty much all office suites - it usually supports less features and causes more problems. DOC was actually pretty well supported outside of Microsoft, too, but with DOCX we are pretty much back to square 1 (although it should be easier to read in theory).
> they could easily make earlier android version work on "low end" smartphones.
In fact other companies do exactly that. A 600 MHz Arm, 256 MB RAM, 512 MB Flash and a half decent display make a very nice and surprisingly capable Android phone. ZTE does it, Huawei does it, and even Sony. Sure, it is not going to be the fastest, it will not allow you to install you every game in existence, but it is very flexible, and IMHO beats a feature phone any day.
I can see the patent issue as a potential problem for Nokia. But that doesn't explain a move that can only be called "backwards oriented".
And that is the key point. Real security can be audited without compromising it. Obscurity cannot be audited - you have to take their word that it is "obscure" enough. And what is obscure or inconceivable to some person may be perfectly obvious to another (such as a blackhat with actual security skills...).
> Where can I get an x64 or ARM system that scales to 32 or 64 sockets?
NUMA, I assume? What is the point - once you have NUMA, the illusion of a consistent memory image is pretty useless. Clusters with fast interconnects exists (not cheap, but cheaper than SPARC), and they work perfectly well, so well that market is growing.
> Back then, was it really the Ultra SPARC CPUs that weren't suitable for desktop use?
Maybe, although I think I checked, and it was beefier than what the SuperSPARC (Sparc 20) had to cope with. Those were a generation before, and it showed, but at least at the time they were reasonably competitive (and a lot smaller). I was running an older SuperSPARC as a server for ages, until 10BaseT just didn't cut it any more.
No, of course you don't sell my iPad, because it is mine. The correct phrase is "I wouldn't sell my iPad just yet if I were you". Logic used to be better here back in the days...
That's unfortunately true. I had an UltraSPARC I workstation, and a Pentium 133 could beat it for "desktop" workloads. Sure, disk, network, probably even memory was faster, but the CPU just didn't deliver. And it was crazy expensive by comparison. Sun just lost it around that time. They opened up to a point, and that delayed the decline, but Sun has been a shadow of its former self for a long time.
Debian and Ubuntu have Firefox 64bit versions for years, and they work just fine. Flash used to be a problem, but now there are two options to get it working.
Releases are happening so fast now that there is no time to write release notes. Or even to tell people what is in it. The only thing that is sure is that it is already outdated, and two more versions are being worked on.
> Opera goes up to 11, and Firefox needs to work hard to make their browser go up to 11 too.
So why didn't they just call Firefox 4 Firefox 11? That would have been just as childish, but much less disruptive.
And you know what: nobody knows or cares which version Google Chrome is at. Double digits I think, probably more than 11, but the simple fact is that it is the better browser. End of story.
> The problem is not the "awesomeness bit" itself - the suckage is inside the SQLite used in the background, degrading performance by hitting HDD way too often and with high latencies.
Exactly. I think it was Firefox 2 when they integrated SQL (or was it 3?), and startup times are much longer ever since. And I have a Linux system where nothing else is using the disk after I log-on, whereas on Windows it seems that everybody process is just rushing to "quickly scan the hard disk" for a few things.
I feel like doing a nice graphics about how awesome Firefox 3.6 was and still is. True and tested technology, stable API, long term stable version, security updates are small and fast to install, familiar interface etc etc etc
That's because although they do not want to admit it, Firefox 7 is actually Firefox 4.3. Not much has changed since Firefox 4, and just a few minor details have been tuned. Heck you could even call it Firefox 4.0.3. It is all very transparent, and I am not sure why the Firefox developers are so adamant that this is "THE RIGHT WAY". I don't sign up to any religion when I use Firefox, and I happily move on if they p*ss me off.
> In practise, lots of businesses have found the sort of customer who comes in on a Groupon deal is the sort of customer who never under any circumstances would even dream of coming back at full price.
That is the key problem, yes. You can get customers used to discounts - and in fact Groupon has already achieved exactly that. To be honest, the fact that a business offers the same service for 15% of the standard price is an admission if there ever was one that the standard price is way too high.
And that is the other problem: companies could do the same without Groupon. Price sells - especially if you cut out the Groupon fat. I don't think that the service Groupon provides is worth the price. And the figures support this: if you spend half of your revenue on sales, then your products sucks.
> What kind of wonder ssd can handle so much rewrites?
That is exactly the question. A cache is rewritten much more often than a hard disk. In fact the small the cache is, the more writes you get, because the content changes more frequently. But a smaller cache has fewer writes - so I think this is a non-starter.
The general idea is sound, but they probably need to integrate battery buffered RAM to make it work, or software support in the file system. Neither sounds like a particularly viable option.
Slashdot Mirror
It is about time. The old goal of "protecting the system from the user" is obsolete. A PC is owned by the user - the user is not the enemy.
Instead, the data needs protecting from rogue applications. Not everybody will recognise a trojan even if the writing is on the wall, and even an expert may not have the resources to be sure. Sandboxing removes any doubt - an application has to say what it wants to do.
So for once, this is actually a useful development.
A contact is a legal agreement between two parties. Living parties. If an auction ends and the seller is dead, no contract is formed. Whether you can convince ebay of that is a different question.
The same principle applies to most other contracts: health insurance is automatically terminated, you just have to tell them that it happened. Messing around with the deceased's credentials is not going to solve the problem, unless it is a trivial matter.
Of course it is worth thinking about those trivial matters, too. Facebook account - could be useful at least to inform some friends. Email is certainly useful, just to monitor what is coming in. I would recommend a sealed envelop in a safe place - and if you are paranoid encrypt it with an agreed one-time pad.
As far as I understand DRAM has been getting faster, smaller, and cheaper, while Memristors are "around the corner" for some time now. And the only MRAM you can buy is a 4 mbit chip made in decade old technology that costs a ridiculous amount of money.
I would like better memory as much as anybody here, but I just don't see Memristors delivering.
> In the PC space there is no road to real innovation.
There is a lot of space for innovation, or at least of improvement.
Create systems that seamless sleep and wake up again within a reasonable amount of time (ideally 150ms or less).
Integrate (or add) a back-up solution like time machine.
Preconfigure PCs so that you just have to plug them in and they work.
Push hard disk trays - if your PC breaks, just take the disk and put it in a new one.
Put basic hard disk network access in the BIOS / UEFI.
Build a silent SFF or All-in-1 PC that doesn't suck.
Design compartmentalised PCs for more than one work place.
Ship keyboards with USB plugs.
Add mesh wifi for improved coverage.
The opportunities for innovation are there, but HP is not using them.
> Why would I want it to work if I powered the phone is off?
Because you still have to go to work, even if you turn off your phone to get a good night of sleep, or if you battery is dead? My 7 year old Sony works that way, and I bet most other phones. If you don't want to get an alarm, don't program an alarm :-)
> You have to remember that your company has no loyalty to you.
It really depends. I would say that most companies probably have less loyalty for you than you might think, but I only say that because I have also seen a few companies that genuinely care for their employees. The difference is like night and day. Think about it, and if you are honest, you will know on which side you are. The decision to stay or leave should follow logically.
> This way, multiple carriers can share frequencies, even if they use different communication protocols (CDMA/TDMA/GSM).
You should read Comms 101, and it should all become clear. You can mix different protocols, but not different encodings. CDMA uses orthogonal codes to divide the spectrum into channels, TDMA uses time slots. Or, to use an analogy: you cannot have horizontal and vertical stripes at the same time. That would be checkered, and in communications terms that is chaos.
But there is great potential in "white space" spectrum. That is the spectrum used by TV stations far away, and there are always some gaps to avoid overlaps of neighbouring stations on the same frequency. There is potentially some low level interference, and you have to limit the power output, but otherwise it is perfectly usable. In fact if you check the spectrum, only a small part is actively being used at any one time.
> What amount of usage puts you in the top 5%?
Doesn't matter - by definition they are mis-selling this plan to 5% of the users. That might be normal in the telecom industry, but in general it a pretty bad record. And once the 5% have left because of the changes, the next 5% are in trouble...
> If you send it as an RTF they shouldn't have any trouble opening it.
This is not Office, this is a document scanning system - and it may very well have issues with RTF. That being said, I found RTF to be generally less well supported on pretty much all office suites - it usually supports less features and causes more problems. DOC was actually pretty well supported outside of Microsoft, too, but with DOCX we are pretty much back to square 1 (although it should be easier to read in theory).
> they could easily make earlier android version work on "low end" smartphones.
In fact other companies do exactly that. A 600 MHz Arm, 256 MB RAM, 512 MB Flash and a half decent display make a very nice and surprisingly capable Android phone. ZTE does it, Huawei does it, and even Sony. Sure, it is not going to be the fastest, it will not allow you to install you every game in existence, but it is very flexible, and IMHO beats a feature phone any day.
I can see the patent issue as a potential problem for Nokia. But that doesn't explain a move that can only be called "backwards oriented".
> Which bank would you prefer?
And that is the key point. Real security can be audited without compromising it. Obscurity cannot be audited - you have to take their word that it is "obscure" enough. And what is obscure or inconceivable to some person may be perfectly obvious to another (such as a blackhat with actual security skills...).
> Too bad AIX is such a dog. It's the worst unix variant in existence.
Well said, although HP_UX was a close runner upper. Reliable - sure. Fast, elegant, user-friendly - no!
> Where can I get an x64 or ARM system that scales to 32 or 64 sockets?
NUMA, I assume? What is the point - once you have NUMA, the illusion of a consistent memory image is pretty useless. Clusters with fast interconnects exists (not cheap, but cheaper than SPARC), and they work perfectly well, so well that market is growing.
> Back then, was it really the Ultra SPARC CPUs that weren't suitable for desktop use?
Maybe, although I think I checked, and it was beefier than what the SuperSPARC (Sparc 20) had to cope with. Those were a generation before, and it showed, but at least at the time they were reasonably competitive (and a lot smaller). I was running an older SuperSPARC as a server for ages, until 10BaseT just didn't cut it any more.
No, of course you don't sell my iPad, because it is mine. The correct phrase is "I wouldn't sell my iPad just yet if I were you". Logic used to be better here back in the days...
> The UltraSPARCs were never really that good
That's unfortunately true. I had an UltraSPARC I workstation, and a Pentium 133 could beat it for "desktop" workloads. Sure, disk, network, probably even memory was faster, but the CPU just didn't deliver. And it was crazy expensive by comparison. Sun just lost it around that time. They opened up to a point, and that delayed the decline, but Sun has been a shadow of its former self for a long time.
Debian and Ubuntu have Firefox 64bit versions for years, and they work just fine. Flash used to be a problem, but now there are two options to get it working.
> Assuming that made it in (anybody know?).
Releases are happening so fast now that there is no time to write release notes. Or even to tell people what is in it. The only thing that is sure is that it is already outdated, and two more versions are being worked on.
> Opera goes up to 11, and Firefox needs to work hard to make their browser go up to 11 too.
So why didn't they just call Firefox 4 Firefox 11? That would have been just as childish, but much less disruptive.
And you know what: nobody knows or cares which version Google Chrome is at. Double digits I think, probably more than 11, but the simple fact is that it is the better browser. End of story.
> The problem is not the "awesomeness bit" itself - the suckage is inside the SQLite used in the background, degrading performance by hitting HDD way too often and with high latencies.
Exactly. I think it was Firefox 2 when they integrated SQL (or was it 3?), and startup times are much longer ever since. And I have a Linux system where nothing else is using the disk after I log-on, whereas on Windows it seems that everybody process is just rushing to "quickly scan the hard disk" for a few things.
I feel like doing a nice graphics about how awesome Firefox 3.6 was and still is. True and tested technology, stable API, long term stable version, security updates are small and fast to install, familiar interface etc etc etc
That's because although they do not want to admit it, Firefox 7 is actually Firefox 4.3. Not much has changed since Firefox 4, and just a few minor details have been tuned. Heck you could even call it Firefox 4.0.3. It is all very transparent, and I am not sure why the Firefox developers are so adamant that this is "THE RIGHT WAY". I don't sign up to any religion when I use Firefox, and I happily move on if they p*ss me off.
> In practise, lots of businesses have found the sort of customer who comes in on a Groupon deal is the sort of customer who never under any circumstances would even dream of coming back at full price.
That is the key problem, yes. You can get customers used to discounts - and in fact Groupon has already achieved exactly that. To be honest, the fact that a business offers the same service for 15% of the standard price is an admission if there ever was one that the standard price is way too high.
And that is the other problem: companies could do the same without Groupon. Price sells - especially if you cut out the Groupon fat. I don't think that the service Groupon provides is worth the price. And the figures support this: if you spend half of your revenue on sales, then your products sucks.
> What kind of wonder ssd can handle so much rewrites?
That is exactly the question. A cache is rewritten much more often than a hard disk. In fact the small the cache is, the more writes you get, because the content changes more frequently. But a smaller cache has fewer writes - so I think this is a non-starter.
The general idea is sound, but they probably need to integrate battery buffered RAM to make it work, or software support in the file system. Neither sounds like a particularly viable option.
This most be one of the worst stories I have seen, and it is only fitting that it comes now that the founder has left.
Those sentences don't even make any sense in the sequence they are given. The links are pointless. And the name is Schmidt, for Pete's sake.