wowowowowow waaait a minute: are you telling me they tried to avert false positive adrenaline spikes with a placebo, "empty" e-cig? And how exactly is anyone going to feel any sort of high, even if only psychological, if no combustion, vapor or evaporation exists and no different density, temperature and humidity mixture is felt on the airways?
Now, I'll be honest, I'm taking it out of the summary on this post, and I know the article will probably paint it much more professionally, but I doubt they can justify why that third scenario would have counted for anything relevant, and probably won't even convince me either that there is any reason a scientist would think otherwise. Unless they don't know the least thing about e-cig usage, which I have a big feeling about.
Not exactly, and actually false for some European countries (even inside the EU).
First, they do not "give us", Europeans, that warranty - they abide to EU regulations which require 2 years of "purpose" (sans faults) under "normal use". They do exactly what they state they don't in the US - they automatically "contract" to it just by making business inside Europe. This happens EU-wide, EXCEPT in member states where the regulation is not ratified/enforced such as the UK.
Oh and it's not Apple that is actually responsible at a first stage, it's the retailer who sells you the product: EU Consumer law puts the that weight on retailers for the 2 years of warranty, because many a times manufacturers aren't even based in the EU (e.g. goods are imported). This is not the case with Apple, so "Apple Europe" (a.k.a. "Apple Ireland" ^_*) actually provides the 2-year grace period to retailers which in turn provide it to end consumers. Consequentially, you find that many a times, companies that have representation in Europe prefer you go directly to them instead of retailers because it saves them time, money and brand since people love swift, direct customer support, especially of the pick-up and return variety taht avoids a second trip to the B&M.
Design and Manufacturing defects OTTH are indeed the manufacturer's (Apple) responsibility for 6 years (I think, and likely only if it has representation inside the Union), but just like in the US actual enforcement of such responsibilities is uncommon, cumbersome, and usually requires litigation. Since in Europe litigation through class-action is very uncommon (in some EU members the concept of "class" doesn't even exist), you rarely see stuff such as mandatory mass-recalls of goods. When no conditions for a cheap, organized class to form, litigation becomes prohibitively costly and over-complex.
In practice, this second-tier warranty is more enforceable on the US, and thus better. If I'm not mistaken, state-side this Design and Manufacturing Defects warranty can even go indefinitely - as long as you have a judge prove manufacturer liability in an item's characteristics. If so, the consumer will keep the right to request repair, refund, or even damages. This is logically sound because a company should be responsible for its faults no matter the time those faults are found - you can't, for instance, install pollutant engines in a VW diesel car in 2006 and expect that by 2016 you no longer have to answer for that illegality. It is also a common excuse to why most companies outcry that customers should not be able to service products they purchase and only allow repairs from authorized sources.
I get it, completely. I was just under a different mindset. So what your client meant was that to actually make your (or your company's) code proprietary (as in ownership) and consequentially not open it up to accidental infringement, is to open-source it with clear disclaimers about distribution and monetizing - basically the poison is your poison - only you get to distribute it with the original "brand of trust". This as long been (from my understanding) the main argument for FOSS pushed by the FSF - if everyone goes FOSS, nobody but you will be credited as the original author. But as we all know, it still is highly debated.
For one, you can't really ignore the authoritativeness of the premise: for the argument to work, everybody needs to abide to the rules. That means FOSS it all out, even when your or your companies health and revenue depend on it. It basically means blindingly trust in the system. We know for a fact that kind of "diplomacy" doesn't work - just look at international agreements being violated every day: environmental, nuclear non-proliferation, peace, borders, heck even human rights.
And that leads us to the second, and undoubtedly most relevant counter-argument: when you "FOSS it", you make it public to friend and foe. Foe might be legally bound to act according to the GPL, but he is never legally bound to generally out his (non-public) code under the GPL, so he WILL use your 10k+ man-hours FOSS'd algorithms sociopathically just like everybody pirates movies, software and any intellectual property freely available, and then compile it up in a way nobody ever knows he broke the rules.
To my eyes, and this is gonna sound really American from an open-minded European like me, but the GPL argument as much the same needs as a communism state: it needs Big Brother-level supervision to work, because there is no ubiquitous loyalty to GPL rules. It basically only works on "simple" things in the monetizing sense - "things" you can sell support for easily (e.g. you are the only player with the know-how); things there is nobody else interested on the market; things where you have enough a monopoly which ensures you keep it going; things you have no interest that there is a market (you destroy the market by making it trivial). Even better, the Google's way - things you want the market to proliferate, yet you still control the back-end monetizing at multiple levels (marketing, retail, big data...). And even Google still can't release the source of some client-bound stuff that runs on your supposedly AOSP device - or else, Pixel/Nexus devices would have a nice, bit-by-bit buildable source tree for their ROMs (and no, I don't trust release keys are the only "diff" on a Google-flavoured ROM).
Oh wait I think I got the simile - he basically meant that it no longer makes sense to consider GPL as "poison" (actually "having a poison effect" is what I stated), because this, as an hypothesis has been proven wrong through the scientific method. What I didn't get is where exactly is that proof. I mean, isn't this article itself proof that GPL is indeed "poison"? Weren't the people actually petitioning that the "poison effect is enforced"?
No jokes here, I am actually interested in understanding that simile.
BTW pardon the ignorance of not acknowledging "simile", I am not a native English speaker and both the word "simile", which I was oblivious to, and actually noticing the simile "hotwords" in English is actually harder than it looks when you produce text, on your mind simultaneously, in two very similar (no pun intended!) grammars from different languages. We actually just call similes comparisons here:D (metaphors are just metaphors)
Actually, I don't consider GPL as poison in the pejorative sense of the word. It's just the word used for its spreading capabilities, since not many licenses force every module of the system they are included to BECOME licensed with the same license as the part. Of course, a much more coherent word would be the likes of virus, epidemic, wildfire, etc (BORG?) - i.e. much worse pejorative semantics. It's just the way it is - you can't have a FTJ where you code proprietary and NOT consider GPL as a poison of sorts (actually, I see it more like a full fledged tabu, as it is a big no-no where I work and I'm in no position to object). You can't really use a metaphor for vaccination denial on this one. Unless I didn't catch those big associative logic jumps.
I'm sorry to put it like that, but really, that's a lost cause. OSX has more chances to have its source freed than litigation like this to have an initial hearing. Nonetheless, the petition by itself might be a wake up call to the maintainers of Phoenix OS - who knows, they might just open it out of the good in their hearts (since it likely isn't making any money anyways out of being proprietary).
They kinda just released a privacy-centered laptop and it appears to be somewhat decent, despite the price-tag, from early external statements. But then again, the mild price-hike is nothing compared to your privacy's worth - you know, if you don't want to be selling it to whatever other choice around which pretty much tracks you to hardware-level shenanigans. These guys go down to circuitry choice of components for making their gear secure on that level apparently.
Now a phone is a very different piece of kit to develop than a laptop, which is mostly standardized and you can mostly tune off-the-shelf stuff to your needs (in this case, privacy without a huge usability compromise). Especially the OS. On a phone, not only you would need to go through some hardcore loops for hardware customization, but I can't start to grasp the task of making an OS and ecosystem that suits the mobile phone I (and probably most of you) need today - with navigation, versatile connectivity and, you know, supporting convenience apps for this and that that have pretty much merged themselves to our lives out of sheer convenience. And do that on a 600 price tag is a very nice dream unless it comes true. Running Linux is no guarantee of it having the community or even 3rd-party support it deserves.
I see absolutely nothing exciting in that list. Not even Treble, nor the new "updates without taking any space" feature seems anything cutting-edge for my own uses, but might be good for developing countries where most phones have 2-16gb of storage, and maybe half that available for user-space.
As a developer, the only thing that gets me excited is third-party In-Call Screen APIs finally being made available, after 2 major OS versions started showing documentation for it but never actually allowing anything. And the only thing that ticks my nerves is android ID going down the drain.
Actually, add that 3rd-party incall screen as a user-feature too - it will be a glorious time when we have a store-bound caller replacement app that can solve the lack of features of the standard and OEM-customized launchers, and also nullify the learning curve of changing between Android flavors.
I guess that's why so many people still cling onto their 3year old OnePlus One devices - you know, that phone made by a small company that decided to build a top-spec'd, cheap and pretty much fail-proof device, and to boot use an open-source version of Android (well, back then at least). Even with the loss of CyanogenMod official support, the community is still alive and kicking for the device and it will likely get Android O closely after launch date.
When I mentioned cloud storage I actually meant storage, streaming subscription services and stuff like social media and Google Photos, meaning to argue that people would eventually drop the need for huge local storage, since much of the data would either ORIGINATE or END UP in the internet - and these 2 words are key here:
Stuff that "originate" 's in the cloud - music, video and gaming streaming services The use pattern today, for media consumption, is people wanting new stuff but still have a big library of old stuff - this is spotify, netflix and steam for you (for obvious reasons I mentioned the big players' triad). Sadly enough, the gaming part is quite lacking in Android, and I find that most games I don't like are ones that need periodic downloads for every "chapter" or stages - a pattern in graphic-intensive store-bound games (e.g. Final Fantasy Mobius and many Square-Enix games).
Stuff that "ends up" in the cloud Photos and movies you capture, where do they usually end up these days? Either forever forgotten in your local storage, shared on social media or uploaded automatically to your cloud-based sync platform (e.g. Google Photos). The first place is one I and most would rather no longer need unless its something time-critical or that one really feels should always be with you.
Final note: the data plan or lack of internet argument There are still massive amounts of local storage in today's smartphones - you can still have a lot, maybe not your entire library but hell, enough FLAC for A WEEK of listening without a single repeat, or 1080p shows/movies for 24h consumption. "Oh but I want freedom to have everything" - you will get access to everything as soon as you get a connection, so in all honesty, if you are living your life without planning ahead of the availability (or lack) of internet connection, especially when going on stretches of leisure-designated time, you are likely also not taking the full advantage of the connected world. Even data caps are getting better with time, at least around here in Europe.
You definitely seem like the kind of user that has the right to request those features to be on a phone, and I honestly hope there is a market for manufacturers to keep supporting the features you need. I wish that I had the time and mental capacity to still care about the amazing emulation scene but unfortunately life caught up to a point I mostly consume 2-3h hours of media per day, the rest being work, kids and sleep. Let alone time to chat around so much I need the luxury of a physical qwerty on a phone. All I got are these long slashdot comments during work-breaks.
The best way to protect the environment, and this is gonna sound corporate, is to have the battery serviced so they can discard of the old one with care, something 99% of the people replacing batteries neglect, be it replaceable or tinkering non-replaceable ones.
I like to service my own phones too, I have replaced countless LCD assemblies, batteries, power/volume clickers, even cameras and SIM slots. But the end-of-life argument is kinda moot when obsolescence has gotten to a point it's not even planned by the manufacturer, but by OS support and actual use patterns inducing people to upgrade. The smartphone has achieved guaranteed obsolescence status much like the PC, by its own nature and not by capitalist conspiracy. Why do you think every company renews flagship every 365 days? The "new phone" market is going nowhere even when every human owns a moderately recent smartphone.
I'm not making a case for anyone but me, but hey, logic seems to be out of stock on that keyboard so I'm gonna proudly agree that we have different opinions and leave it at that. Send my regards to Nelson Mandela back there in stuck-in-2013-vile.
(didn't came as hostile ^_^ I hope my long post didn't either. Internet these days will take any tongue-in-cheek as offense which is kind of a lost art clearly lost in the transition from the real world - quite a shame for light-hearted talkers like me)
OLED is tantalizing, everybody gets it. The guys at GSMArena had this to say 7 years ago in their GS1 review: "...And the majestic Super OLED display is a great reason on its own to buy the Galaxy. Be warned though, you're unlikely to ever go back to TFT again. Meaning that at this point, the question to ask yourself is whether you're ready for a long-term affair with Samsung.".
I have a power-user family member who got an unwanted S2 for free about 2 years ago, and now that it's become faulty he can't grasp the possibility of shelling out big money for the OLED experience, yet he feels he has to. I have tried to make him understand that OLED is an illusion of quality and a big trade-off for either performance or cost (low-end Samsung devices, or expensive Samsung and Moto devices. Oh and that Samsung bloat that doesn't seem to go away). I usually go about like this to him - "look , I have used countless phones as daily drivers, switching from OLED to LCD multiple times - GS2->Nexus 4->Moto X->OPO->GS6->Xiaomi RN3->GS7, and I constantly play around at work with new devices - and every time I switch, I see benefits both sides. The one thing I don't see is actual OLED improvement other than resolution. OLED is just visually ticking your senses with a wow factor on over-saturated colors and, granted, infinite contrast" - thing is he, like most, doesn't care much, so did I in my first year or so with OLED. Now I have to hunt around for a used GS4+ for him... Why submit yourself to this necessity. But enough with evangelizing something clearly personal preference for just about anyone.
Ceramic is great for scratches. It's a no brainer for people that roll without a case. Shatter-proof-wise, I don't know really. And screens are always glass. I'm not sure how any corner protection can save a screen shattering without some sort of cushioning/elasticity like the one provided by rubber cases, and that's why I rarely use a phone without one (even cheap chinese 2 buck variety have saved me many flagship phone falls multiple times).
I would argue that with fast charge you will rarely have a scenario when u run out of juice mid-movie. I would also argue that you're forgetting the point of jack-less phones - use Bluetooth, you can still charge.
FP-reader is definitely about how one holds it, but I have found that 99% of my screen-on + unlock combo comes from taking out of pocket "maneuvering", and just practicing the best way to do so is enough for the most seamless experience. With back FP readers, usually a one-move action works best, since unlock is done at the same time as power on.
On Motorola, I love them but I feel they've fallen out of shape on the top-tier since Lenovo acquired them. I am, nonetheless very confident with Moto and Lenovo partnership going forward, as management seems to have caught the hint of light software tweaks from vanilla droid being the way to roll. I am hoping for vanilla-droid sensibly priced Lenovo devices, with the (not Moto premium, yet) very decent build quality and superb battery life they provide.
I have purchased a total of 0 Apple devices my entire life, but I can appreciate some of their ideas and intents and acknowledge the novelty they have brought to the table over decades of innovation. Apple is a gold standard for many people in many areas. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but dock, s pen and physical qwerty sound to me like someone stuck in a pre-2012 samsung+blackberry world.
When qwerty lost traction, people saw big on-screen typing as a compromise. Now those people are the same that would never go back to qwerty on smartphones even if the qwerty device had better specs. Well, at least those with normal-sized hands and not craving for genuine tactile feedback. If that's not your case, you certainly have an argument to dislike on-screen keyboards.
The s pen is a great device for the niche market of portable designer work, just like the Nvidia tablets that had something a lot better using only software and even that was dropped. As for everything else you mention you make a far point, yet I have never seen anyone carrying an extra battery for a phone for the so-called "freedom to pop in a new, full source of juice" which has been making the rounds in every replaceable battery device review ever - it's just a niche or even fake use case, much like microSD.
Burn in no longer seems a problem in recent LCDs but with the average life expectancy of Smartphones being at or around 3 years use I don't even need to make an argument for that. And let's level here - do you see burn-in in your television, PC monitor or whatever devices you keep around the house, some of them even on for a large part of the day? The only phones I have had burn-in are my developer phones at work with more than 4 years, which biasedly have sat for hours, plugged to ADB with "keep screen on", and even those swiftly lose ghost images after some time fiddling with a small session of movement-heavy playback.
I do see the advantages, I just think that with high-speed 128GB, sometimes even 256GB being standard in flagship devices, and most of the media consumption, by a large sum being streaming these days (even on mobile plans), it stops making sense to expect microSD. Embedded components just have an undeniable speed advantage. MicroSD availability gained nice to have status in my book along the years and I believe it did for most too.
I have experienced first-hand the availability and use of a microSD yet speed+portability takes precedence, and that's why I would never use a card as extended storage for my Android phone as opposed to it just being a backup drive when I would have the need for massive storage - something I can just pop a USB-OTG adapter in if needs be. It's been long since people "fetished" iPod-like freedom to have entire media libraries on the go, while it's become more and more unnecessary, sometimes even inconvenient to rely on extra storage when you have stuff like Google Photos and a whole lot of sync options for the stuff you mostly consume sitting on a chair or couch at home. Oh and 128GB. I mean, it's getting close to what a laptop ships with these days.
I would leave it at YMMV but everyone can agree 128GB or more pretty much destroys the "I need lots of space" argument when we are talking about Smartphones these days. What those who deny it want is intrinsically unlimited space, and that's an offer already present with the Cloud and streaming.
exactly my thoughts when I read it. I bet a purchase, by none other than their obvious principal manufacturing partner, is just part of some side-deal where purchasing that stock was the best way to dodge taxation. And get the valuation hype as a perk xD
You might actually be on to something. Something like the Elon master plan - "make a perfect phone, necessarily expensive; use money to develop the perfect drone, even more expensive; use THAT money to make a UFO and GTFO":D
The good thing about Sillicon Valley VC and seed funding is you get to keep the tech even if the company fails miserably. And that tech, be it code, schematics, but usually mostly patents will usually mitigate most of the risk. I personally think rich people spending money on a smart dude that buys a Porsche with his first stock sale, but then happens to make the next Facebook or Zune (kidding), is the least of our problems. I mean, I'm in IT and if I had that money I would probably go to the casino and burn it in a day, because, you know, human nature.
I see your point, but marketability and appeal for phones doesn't have to catter only to your specific needs on a phone. Dropping the AMOLED and a microSD tells me you're in the Samsung bandwagon, which I can understand (not relate) having used the previous 2 Galaxys as my personal device for 3 years now, continuously. But it has actually been scientifically and practically proven that AMOLED is not better - not in battery, not in color accurate representation, and contrast is a pet peeve when basically most use a phone gets is around bright environments. It's personal preference, and for Samsung it's actually financial preference as it's what they invest in. I'm sure the sense of ownership kicks in while watching movies in your dark bedroom, when black screens pop up and everything gets pitch-black, and looking at your iridescently dark phone when screen is off face up on a table. but that's really it. I've learned the latest and greatest LCDs perform MUCH better in the sun which is where I need my phone.
Now, microSD is a bummer but who carries around more than half an hour of 4k content let alone an entire library of TV shows and/or FLAC. People don't have the time to consume or film a ~100GB sinkhole. They don't even have the time to wait for 100GB-orders of magnitude transfers with UHC-2 at 150MBs theoretycal (which is what most would get unless they're dirty rich). What people have is a latent sense of insecurity for non-expansion, yet completely neglect UFS 2.1 is a godsend. It's like having range anxiety on a 2.3s 0-60 Model S - it's pathological. Google knew their shyt when they pitched cloud storage would be the future for entertainment media, they were just a little too early with their push back in the Nexus 4 and now everybody got a piece of the pie while we geeks all cry for "expansionism" (no pun intended).
When I look at this phone I see an updated, improved Mi Mix that actually gets the attention it deserves from its manufacturer (in this case for obvious reasons: it's their only device). I see a beautifully design titanium build, a material which has pretty much been neglected by everyone other OEM for cost; I see an actually usable accessory paradigm - simple, cheap('ish); I see a screen that doesn't use a stupid form factor that will suit nothing but your own damn useless OS modifications (*wink wink* S8). And that doesn't need to be LCD to wow me.
I also see Apple price tags on a newcomer - rookie mistake really (but they are already riding the hype in the seed funding market, it's only a small jump to consumers); like the S8, an underwhelming amount of RAM for a 2017 flagship - big NO-NO, clearly based on too much trust in system-based management by none other than the OS creator. This is a mistake everybody else seems to make but OnePlus I might add - I mean, is ram that costly or is it really so hard to understand Java is a HUGE memory hog and garbage collection really sucks because most app devs simply can't cope with day-to-day use usage patterns. This won't improve with time, trust me, Android rarely gets better on RAM management in magnitudes that have visible effects?
And obviously I see no analog jack, but if you're the type to walk around with audiophile-priced and/or sized headphones, a super-duper small USB-C adapter isn't a problem - it's not like it's a Macbook Pro needing 3 of 4 of those at once because "MOST MY HARDWARE IS JUST FINE WITH USB non-C". It's one small dongle, which is gonna be used either once per year or 24/7 and never detach from it's peripheral cable. And in different ways that Apple sells their jack-less world, I actually believe there IS a future for a "last-link" analog conversion strategy, where audio is continually digital until it reaches the very electronics that reverberate analogically to your eardrums, but it will take its time to come like all audio technologies do (Atmos anyone?). Audio quality is a speculative commodity - it is only worth as much as the people whose ears you trust brag about it, and when you take a plunge it's mu
I would complete with: "...and jocks on IT are extra jerks because they want big bucks by playing the nerd. Not even nerd status is safe anymore when you want a man that treats women with the respect they deserve".
But I would still not generalize it. There ARE disgusting, deuchebaggy nerds and always have been. That's the problem with sitgmas and stereotypes - they're flawed by definition. Christinagirl1 shows a nice view over time of her overview on tech, but you still can't extrapolate universally. Every situation should be analyzed ad-hoc
Best internet dissent suppression possible: no internet at all. And btw, NK already perfected that cheerleading strat; the Chinese are just applying it to the internet in larger numbers.
Martin Fuchs is the name of one of the researchers. He should have to pay extra to have such a cool name at a conference like Def Con. Not a single Fuchs was given about naming the 10 extensions though. They do mention that 10.000 more extension versions (?) are affected by such problems, so I guess it doesn't really matter. We all dun Fuchs'd.
Slashdot Mirror
wowowowowow waaait a minute: are you telling me they tried to avert false positive adrenaline spikes with a placebo, "empty" e-cig? And how exactly is anyone going to feel any sort of high, even if only psychological, if no combustion, vapor or evaporation exists and no different density, temperature and humidity mixture is felt on the airways?
Now, I'll be honest, I'm taking it out of the summary on this post, and I know the article will probably paint it much more professionally, but I doubt they can justify why that third scenario would have counted for anything relevant, and probably won't even convince me either that there is any reason a scientist would think otherwise. Unless they don't know the least thing about e-cig usage, which I have a big feeling about.
Not exactly, and actually false for some European countries (even inside the EU).
First, they do not "give us", Europeans, that warranty - they abide to EU regulations which require 2 years of "purpose" (sans faults) under "normal use". They do exactly what they state they don't in the US - they automatically "contract" to it just by making business inside Europe. This happens EU-wide, EXCEPT in member states where the regulation is not ratified/enforced such as the UK.
Oh and it's not Apple that is actually responsible at a first stage, it's the retailer who sells you the product: EU Consumer law puts the that weight on retailers for the 2 years of warranty, because many a times manufacturers aren't even based in the EU (e.g. goods are imported). This is not the case with Apple, so "Apple Europe" (a.k.a. "Apple Ireland" ^_*) actually provides the 2-year grace period to retailers which in turn provide it to end consumers. Consequentially, you find that many a times, companies that have representation in Europe prefer you go directly to them instead of retailers because it saves them time, money and brand since people love swift, direct customer support, especially of the pick-up and return variety taht avoids a second trip to the B&M.
Design and Manufacturing defects OTTH are indeed the manufacturer's (Apple) responsibility for 6 years (I think, and likely only if it has representation inside the Union), but just like in the US actual enforcement of such responsibilities is uncommon, cumbersome, and usually requires litigation. Since in Europe litigation through class-action is very uncommon (in some EU members the concept of "class" doesn't even exist), you rarely see stuff such as mandatory mass-recalls of goods. When no conditions for a cheap, organized class to form, litigation becomes prohibitively costly and over-complex.
In practice, this second-tier warranty is more enforceable on the US, and thus better. If I'm not mistaken, state-side this Design and Manufacturing Defects warranty can even go indefinitely - as long as you have a judge prove manufacturer liability in an item's characteristics. If so, the consumer will keep the right to request repair, refund, or even damages. This is logically sound because a company should be responsible for its faults no matter the time those faults are found - you can't, for instance, install pollutant engines in a VW diesel car in 2006 and expect that by 2016 you no longer have to answer for that illegality. It is also a common excuse to why most companies outcry that customers should not be able to service products they purchase and only allow repairs from authorized sources.
I think my keyboard's H key needs some fixing up.
Thank you very much for clearing that up!
I get it, completely. I was just under a different mindset. So what your client meant was that to actually make your (or your company's) code proprietary (as in ownership) and consequentially not open it up to accidental infringement, is to open-source it with clear disclaimers about distribution and monetizing - basically the poison is your poison - only you get to distribute it with the original "brand of trust". This as long been (from my understanding) the main argument for FOSS pushed by the FSF - if everyone goes FOSS, nobody but you will be credited as the original author. But as we all know, it still is highly debated.
For one, you can't really ignore the authoritativeness of the premise: for the argument to work, everybody needs to abide to the rules. That means FOSS it all out, even when your or your companies health and revenue depend on it. It basically means blindingly trust in the system. We know for a fact that kind of "diplomacy" doesn't work - just look at international agreements being violated every day: environmental, nuclear non-proliferation, peace, borders, heck even human rights.
And that leads us to the second, and undoubtedly most relevant counter-argument: when you "FOSS it", you make it public to friend and foe. Foe might be legally bound to act according to the GPL, but he is never legally bound to generally out his (non-public) code under the GPL, so he WILL use your 10k+ man-hours FOSS'd algorithms sociopathically just like everybody pirates movies, software and any intellectual property freely available, and then compile it up in a way nobody ever knows he broke the rules.
To my eyes, and this is gonna sound really American from an open-minded European like me, but the GPL argument as much the same needs as a communism state: it needs Big Brother-level supervision to work, because there is no ubiquitous loyalty to GPL rules. It basically only works on "simple" things in the monetizing sense - "things" you can sell support for easily (e.g. you are the only player with the know-how); things there is nobody else interested on the market; things where you have enough a monopoly which ensures you keep it going; things you have no interest that there is a market (you destroy the market by making it trivial). Even better, the Google's way - things you want the market to proliferate, yet you still control the back-end monetizing at multiple levels (marketing, retail, big data...). And even Google still can't release the source of some client-bound stuff that runs on your supposedly AOSP device - or else, Pixel/Nexus devices would have a nice, bit-by-bit buildable source tree for their ROMs (and no, I don't trust release keys are the only "diff" on a Google-flavoured ROM).
Oh wait I think I got the simile - he basically meant that it no longer makes sense to consider GPL as "poison" (actually "having a poison effect" is what I stated), because this, as an hypothesis has been proven wrong through the scientific method. What I didn't get is where exactly is that proof. I mean, isn't this article itself proof that GPL is indeed "poison"? Weren't the people actually petitioning that the "poison effect is enforced"?
No jokes here, I am actually interested in understanding that simile.
BTW pardon the ignorance of not acknowledging "simile", I am not a native English speaker and both the word "simile", which I was oblivious to, and actually noticing the simile "hotwords" in English is actually harder than it looks when you produce text, on your mind simultaneously, in two very similar (no pun intended!) grammars from different languages. We actually just call similes comparisons here :D (metaphors are just metaphors)
Owh, that's nice to hear!
Actually, I don't consider GPL as poison in the pejorative sense of the word. It's just the word used for its spreading capabilities, since not many licenses force every module of the system they are included to BECOME licensed with the same license as the part. Of course, a much more coherent word would be the likes of virus, epidemic, wildfire, etc (BORG?) - i.e. much worse pejorative semantics. It's just the way it is - you can't have a FTJ where you code proprietary and NOT consider GPL as a poison of sorts (actually, I see it more like a full fledged tabu, as it is a big no-no where I work and I'm in no position to object). You can't really use a metaphor for vaccination denial on this one. Unless I didn't catch those big associative logic jumps.
...bringing about the GPL-poison effect no less.... ...(and if that wasn't enough) against an organization based in China?????
AAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAH AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHHAHAHA HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA
I'm sorry to put it like that, but really, that's a lost cause. OSX has more chances to have its source freed than litigation like this to have an initial hearing. Nonetheless, the petition by itself might be a wake up call to the maintainers of Phoenix OS - who knows, they might just open it out of the good in their hearts (since it likely isn't making any money anyways out of being proprietary).
They kinda just released a privacy-centered laptop and it appears to be somewhat decent, despite the price-tag, from early external statements. But then again, the mild price-hike is nothing compared to your privacy's worth - you know, if you don't want to be selling it to whatever other choice around which pretty much tracks you to hardware-level shenanigans. These guys go down to circuitry choice of components for making their gear secure on that level apparently.
Now a phone is a very different piece of kit to develop than a laptop, which is mostly standardized and you can mostly tune off-the-shelf stuff to your needs (in this case, privacy without a huge usability compromise). Especially the OS. On a phone, not only you would need to go through some hardcore loops for hardware customization, but I can't start to grasp the task of making an OS and ecosystem that suits the mobile phone I (and probably most of you) need today - with navigation, versatile connectivity and, you know, supporting convenience apps for this and that that have pretty much merged themselves to our lives out of sheer convenience. And do that on a 600 price tag is a very nice dream unless it comes true. Running Linux is no guarantee of it having the community or even 3rd-party support it deserves.
I see absolutely nothing exciting in that list. Not even Treble, nor the new "updates without taking any space" feature seems anything cutting-edge for my own uses, but might be good for developing countries where most phones have 2-16gb of storage, and maybe half that available for user-space.
As a developer, the only thing that gets me excited is third-party In-Call Screen APIs finally being made available, after 2 major OS versions started showing documentation for it but never actually allowing anything. And the only thing that ticks my nerves is android ID going down the drain.
Actually, add that 3rd-party incall screen as a user-feature too - it will be a glorious time when we have a store-bound caller replacement app that can solve the lack of features of the standard and OEM-customized launchers, and also nullify the learning curve of changing between Android flavors.
I guess that's why so many people still cling onto their 3year old OnePlus One devices - you know, that phone made by a small company that decided to build a top-spec'd, cheap and pretty much fail-proof device, and to boot use an open-source version of Android (well, back then at least). Even with the loss of CyanogenMod official support, the community is still alive and kicking for the device and it will likely get Android O closely after launch date.
When I mentioned cloud storage I actually meant storage, streaming subscription services and stuff like social media and Google Photos, meaning to argue that people would eventually drop the need for huge local storage, since much of the data would either ORIGINATE or END UP in the internet - and these 2 words are key here:
Stuff that "originate" 's in the cloud - music, video and gaming streaming services
The use pattern today, for media consumption, is people wanting new stuff but still have a big library of old stuff - this is spotify, netflix and steam for you (for obvious reasons I mentioned the big players' triad). Sadly enough, the gaming part is quite lacking in Android, and I find that most games I don't like are ones that need periodic downloads for every "chapter" or stages - a pattern in graphic-intensive store-bound games (e.g. Final Fantasy Mobius and many Square-Enix games).
Stuff that "ends up" in the cloud
Photos and movies you capture, where do they usually end up these days? Either forever forgotten in your local storage, shared on social media or uploaded automatically to your cloud-based sync platform (e.g. Google Photos). The first place is one I and most would rather no longer need unless its something time-critical or that one really feels should always be with you.
Final note: the data plan or lack of internet argument
There are still massive amounts of local storage in today's smartphones - you can still have a lot, maybe not your entire library but hell, enough FLAC for A WEEK of listening without a single repeat, or 1080p shows/movies for 24h consumption. "Oh but I want freedom to have everything" - you will get access to everything as soon as you get a connection, so in all honesty, if you are living your life without planning ahead of the availability (or lack) of internet connection, especially when going on stretches of leisure-designated time, you are likely also not taking the full advantage of the connected world. Even data caps are getting better with time, at least around here in Europe.
You definitely seem like the kind of user that has the right to request those features to be on a phone, and I honestly hope there is a market for manufacturers to keep supporting the features you need. I wish that I had the time and mental capacity to still care about the amazing emulation scene but unfortunately life caught up to a point I mostly consume 2-3h hours of media per day, the rest being work, kids and sleep. Let alone time to chat around so much I need the luxury of a physical qwerty on a phone. All I got are these long slashdot comments during work-breaks.
The best way to protect the environment, and this is gonna sound corporate, is to have the battery serviced so they can discard of the old one with care, something 99% of the people replacing batteries neglect, be it replaceable or tinkering non-replaceable ones.
I like to service my own phones too, I have replaced countless LCD assemblies, batteries, power/volume clickers, even cameras and SIM slots. But the end-of-life argument is kinda moot when obsolescence has gotten to a point it's not even planned by the manufacturer, but by OS support and actual use patterns inducing people to upgrade. The smartphone has achieved guaranteed obsolescence status much like the PC, by its own nature and not by capitalist conspiracy. Why do you think every company renews flagship every 365 days? The "new phone" market is going nowhere even when every human owns a moderately recent smartphone.
I'm not making a case for anyone but me, but hey, logic seems to be out of stock on that keyboard so I'm gonna proudly agree that we have different opinions and leave it at that. Send my regards to Nelson Mandela back there in stuck-in-2013-vile.
(didn't came as hostile ^_^ I hope my long post didn't either. Internet these days will take any tongue-in-cheek as offense which is kind of a lost art clearly lost in the transition from the real world - quite a shame for light-hearted talkers like me)
OLED is tantalizing, everybody gets it. The guys at GSMArena had this to say 7 years ago in their GS1 review: "...And the majestic Super OLED display is a great reason on its own to buy the Galaxy. Be warned though, you're unlikely to ever go back to TFT again. Meaning that at this point, the question to ask yourself is whether you're ready for a long-term affair with Samsung.".
I have a power-user family member who got an unwanted S2 for free about 2 years ago, and now that it's become faulty he can't grasp the possibility of shelling out big money for the OLED experience, yet he feels he has to. I have tried to make him understand that OLED is an illusion of quality and a big trade-off for either performance or cost (low-end Samsung devices, or expensive Samsung and Moto devices. Oh and that Samsung bloat that doesn't seem to go away). I usually go about like this to him - "look , I have used countless phones as daily drivers, switching from OLED to LCD multiple times - GS2->Nexus 4->Moto X->OPO->GS6->Xiaomi RN3->GS7, and I constantly play around at work with new devices - and every time I switch, I see benefits both sides. The one thing I don't see is actual OLED improvement other than resolution. OLED is just visually ticking your senses with a wow factor on over-saturated colors and, granted, infinite contrast" - thing is he, like most, doesn't care much, so did I in my first year or so with OLED. Now I have to hunt around for a used GS4+ for him... Why submit yourself to this necessity. But enough with evangelizing something clearly personal preference for just about anyone.
Ceramic is great for scratches. It's a no brainer for people that roll without a case. Shatter-proof-wise, I don't know really. And screens are always glass. I'm not sure how any corner protection can save a screen shattering without some sort of cushioning/elasticity like the one provided by rubber cases, and that's why I rarely use a phone without one (even cheap chinese 2 buck variety have saved me many flagship phone falls multiple times).
I would argue that with fast charge you will rarely have a scenario when u run out of juice mid-movie. I would also argue that you're forgetting the point of jack-less phones - use Bluetooth, you can still charge.
FP-reader is definitely about how one holds it, but I have found that 99% of my screen-on + unlock combo comes from taking out of pocket "maneuvering", and just practicing the best way to do so is enough for the most seamless experience. With back FP readers, usually a one-move action works best, since unlock is done at the same time as power on.
On Motorola, I love them but I feel they've fallen out of shape on the top-tier since Lenovo acquired them. I am, nonetheless very confident with Moto and Lenovo partnership going forward, as management seems to have caught the hint of light software tweaks from vanilla droid being the way to roll. I am hoping for vanilla-droid sensibly priced Lenovo devices, with the (not Moto premium, yet) very decent build quality and superb battery life they provide.
I have purchased a total of 0 Apple devices my entire life, but I can appreciate some of their ideas and intents and acknowledge the novelty they have brought to the table over decades of innovation. Apple is a gold standard for many people in many areas. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but dock, s pen and physical qwerty sound to me like someone stuck in a pre-2012 samsung+blackberry world.
When qwerty lost traction, people saw big on-screen typing as a compromise. Now those people are the same that would never go back to qwerty on smartphones even if the qwerty device had better specs. Well, at least those with normal-sized hands and not craving for genuine tactile feedback. If that's not your case, you certainly have an argument to dislike on-screen keyboards.
The s pen is a great device for the niche market of portable designer work, just like the Nvidia tablets that had something a lot better using only software and even that was dropped. As for everything else you mention you make a far point, yet I have never seen anyone carrying an extra battery for a phone for the so-called "freedom to pop in a new, full source of juice" which has been making the rounds in every replaceable battery device review ever - it's just a niche or even fake use case, much like microSD.
Burn in no longer seems a problem in recent LCDs but with the average life expectancy of Smartphones being at or around 3 years use I don't even need to make an argument for that. And let's level here - do you see burn-in in your television, PC monitor or whatever devices you keep around the house, some of them even on for a large part of the day? The only phones I have had burn-in are my developer phones at work with more than 4 years, which biasedly have sat for hours, plugged to ADB with "keep screen on", and even those swiftly lose ghost images after some time fiddling with a small session of movement-heavy playback.
I do see the advantages, I just think that with high-speed 128GB, sometimes even 256GB being standard in flagship devices, and most of the media consumption, by a large sum being streaming these days (even on mobile plans), it stops making sense to expect microSD. Embedded components just have an undeniable speed advantage. MicroSD availability gained nice to have status in my book along the years and I believe it did for most too.
I have experienced first-hand the availability and use of a microSD yet speed+portability takes precedence, and that's why I would never use a card as extended storage for my Android phone as opposed to it just being a backup drive when I would have the need for massive storage - something I can just pop a USB-OTG adapter in if needs be. It's been long since people "fetished" iPod-like freedom to have entire media libraries on the go, while it's become more and more unnecessary, sometimes even inconvenient to rely on extra storage when you have stuff like Google Photos and a whole lot of sync options for the stuff you mostly consume sitting on a chair or couch at home. Oh and 128GB. I mean, it's getting close to what a laptop ships with these days.
I would leave it at YMMV but everyone can agree 128GB or more pretty much destroys the "I need lots of space" argument when we are talking about Smartphones these days. What those who deny it want is intrinsically unlimited space, and that's an offer already present with the Cloud and streaming.
exactly my thoughts when I read it. I bet a purchase, by none other than their obvious principal manufacturing partner, is just part of some side-deal where purchasing that stock was the best way to dodge taxation. And get the valuation hype as a perk xD
You might actually be on to something. Something like the Elon master plan - "make a perfect phone, necessarily expensive; use money to develop the perfect drone, even more expensive; use THAT money to make a UFO and GTFO" :D
The good thing about Sillicon Valley VC and seed funding is you get to keep the tech even if the company fails miserably. And that tech, be it code, schematics, but usually mostly patents will usually mitigate most of the risk. I personally think rich people spending money on a smart dude that buys a Porsche with his first stock sale, but then happens to make the next Facebook or Zune (kidding), is the least of our problems. I mean, I'm in IT and if I had that money I would probably go to the casino and burn it in a day, because, you know, human nature.
I see your point, but marketability and appeal for phones doesn't have to catter only to your specific needs on a phone. Dropping the AMOLED and a microSD tells me you're in the Samsung bandwagon, which I can understand (not relate) having used the previous 2 Galaxys as my personal device for 3 years now, continuously. But it has actually been scientifically and practically proven that AMOLED is not better - not in battery, not in color accurate representation, and contrast is a pet peeve when basically most use a phone gets is around bright environments. It's personal preference, and for Samsung it's actually financial preference as it's what they invest in. I'm sure the sense of ownership kicks in while watching movies in your dark bedroom, when black screens pop up and everything gets pitch-black, and looking at your iridescently dark phone when screen is off face up on a table. but that's really it. I've learned the latest and greatest LCDs perform MUCH better in the sun which is where I need my phone.
Now, microSD is a bummer but who carries around more than half an hour of 4k content let alone an entire library of TV shows and/or FLAC. People don't have the time to consume or film a ~100GB sinkhole. They don't even have the time to wait for 100GB-orders of magnitude transfers with UHC-2 at 150MBs theoretycal (which is what most would get unless they're dirty rich). What people have is a latent sense of insecurity for non-expansion, yet completely neglect UFS 2.1 is a godsend. It's like having range anxiety on a 2.3s 0-60 Model S - it's pathological. Google knew their shyt when they pitched cloud storage would be the future for entertainment media, they were just a little too early with their push back in the Nexus 4 and now everybody got a piece of the pie while we geeks all cry for "expansionism" (no pun intended).
When I look at this phone I see an updated, improved Mi Mix that actually gets the attention it deserves from its manufacturer (in this case for obvious reasons: it's their only device). I see a beautifully design titanium build, a material which has pretty much been neglected by everyone other OEM for cost; I see an actually usable accessory paradigm - simple, cheap('ish); I see a screen that doesn't use a stupid form factor that will suit nothing but your own damn useless OS modifications (*wink wink* S8). And that doesn't need to be LCD to wow me.
I also see Apple price tags on a newcomer - rookie mistake really (but they are already riding the hype in the seed funding market, it's only a small jump to consumers); like the S8, an underwhelming amount of RAM for a 2017 flagship - big NO-NO, clearly based on too much trust in system-based management by none other than the OS creator. This is a mistake everybody else seems to make but OnePlus I might add - I mean, is ram that costly or is it really so hard to understand Java is a HUGE memory hog and garbage collection really sucks because most app devs simply can't cope with day-to-day use usage patterns. This won't improve with time, trust me, Android rarely gets better on RAM management in magnitudes that have visible effects?
And obviously I see no analog jack, but if you're the type to walk around with audiophile-priced and/or sized headphones, a super-duper small USB-C adapter isn't a problem - it's not like it's a Macbook Pro needing 3 of 4 of those at once because "MOST MY HARDWARE IS JUST FINE WITH USB non-C". It's one small dongle, which is gonna be used either once per year or 24/7 and never detach from it's peripheral cable. And in different ways that Apple sells their jack-less world, I actually believe there IS a future for a "last-link" analog conversion strategy, where audio is continually digital until it reaches the very electronics that reverberate analogically to your eardrums, but it will take its time to come like all audio technologies do (Atmos anyone?). Audio quality is a speculative commodity - it is only worth as much as the people whose ears you trust brag about it, and when you take a plunge it's mu
I would complete with: "...and jocks on IT are extra jerks because they want big bucks by playing the nerd. Not even nerd status is safe anymore when you want a man that treats women with the respect they deserve".
But I would still not generalize it. There ARE disgusting, deuchebaggy nerds and always have been. That's the problem with sitgmas and stereotypes - they're flawed by definition. Christinagirl1 shows a nice view over time of her overview on tech, but you still can't extrapolate universally. Every situation should be analyzed ad-hoc
Best internet dissent suppression possible: no internet at all. And btw, NK already perfected that cheerleading strat; the Chinese are just applying it to the internet in larger numbers.
Martin Fuchs is the name of one of the researchers. He should have to pay extra to have such a cool name at a conference like Def Con. Not a single Fuchs was given about naming the 10 extensions though. They do mention that 10.000 more extension versions (?) are affected by such problems, so I guess it doesn't really matter. We all dun Fuchs'd.