My employer has a substantial stake in the chip business, and most of us from the Custom ASIC department huddled around a large monitor over lunch today to watch this. Their techniques are fascinating and may someday revolutionize the way we build circuits.
However, the thing that they do not mention in the announcement is that Bell Labs continues to have problems with the chemical bonds between molecules decaying quickly on these transistors. It is similar to the problems that plague engineers of DNA processors, another cutting-edge-but-hopelessly-broken technology. In fact, despite all of these new achievements that promise to revolutionize the industry, silicon is still king and will be king for many years to come.
It's nice to see that a formerly ill-informed senator who supported key escrow has changed his evil ways. But key escrow is the least of our worries because big business wouldn't want the government to be trusted with guarding the keys that shield them from huge losses. Consider these large lobbyists:
Banks: they don't want the government to be able to tap into ATM networks and other encrypted communications, for the personal benefit of the government employees. There's a lot at stake for them because somebody can steal billions if they obtain certain keys. And, as they say, everybody has their price.
RIAA/MPAA: they don't want yet another potential source of leakage for their CSS/DVD/music encryption keys. They'd prefer to wait for some thief in Norway to find it because thieves in Norway take several months to work.
Telecom companies: they don't want the government to see what they're really up to. Ditto for Microsoft. They're all engaged in shady, anticompetitive practices and have learned by now to encrypt internal email and memos.
The list goes on. Fortunately key escrow is opposed by the very people who run America - large corporations and lobbying groups. And that is why we need to worry about the crap in ATA/PATRIOT instead - because big companies don't care whether or not the government can snoop on anti-WTO activists, detain immigrants forever, or give life sentences to hackers.
-CT
The future of handhelds
on
Palm OS Spinoff
·
· Score: 1, Troll
Palm sees the writing on the wall. Faced with slumping sales and negative earnings, they're spinning off the least profitable part of their business and letting it sink or swim. Good for them.
I predict that within two years, every Palm-like device will be running embedded Linux. The advances in CPU power, embedded-friendly features (can you say realtime scheduling), portability, and ease of development will make PalmOS (still stuck in the 90's) and WinCE (never a serious contender anyway) very unattractive, expensive options. As margins fade away and manufacturers look for ways to gain an edge on the competition, Linux will have the clear advantage from the cost perspective. Additionally, Linux-based devices are very popular amongst the technical crowd because of their configurability and stability (especially when compared to other embedded OSs like QNX), which will help prop up sales when the number of rich MBA-types dwindle.
Don't forget, also, that KDE is approaching its 3.0 release and the embedded version is gaining in popularity. I won't be surprised at all if it becomes a serious contender for PDA and cell phone desktops. Porting KDE to PalmOS, WinCE, or QNX would cost some money - but on Linux, it's practically native.
Speaking as an avid music pirate and warez trader, this is one of the best possible cases. Consider the alternatives:
They can contact my ISP and have my connection shut down. That would be very painful for me and disrupt my hobby. I would be forced to go outside, make friends, and do other social things. Bad.
They can send me threatening letters. I don't like threatening letters because that would also make me think twice before swapping warez or trading songs. My parents might see the letter and revoke my computer privileges, which would also be very bad.
They can pollute the swapping services with junk files. This is a huge waste of my time and pisses me off.
They can pollute the warez scene with virii. This would also piss me off greatly.
They can sue the owners of the swapping services. A good service is hard to find (I'm sick of the Aimster/AudioGalaxy kind of crap) and that would annoy me.
They can lobby ISPs to limit upstream bandwidth. That will cause my warez services to diminish in value and make it hard to remotely access my PC.
OR, they can simply DoS the swappers. Unfortunately for them, they are relying on TCP, so they need to disclose their source addresses for the attack to work. And if they do that, we traders can make a database listing all of their IP addresses (kind of like MAPS/ORBS) and block their asses. We will find ways to thwart this approach and we will continue trading.
So, in a nutshell, I am very pleased with their latest strategy. I haven't been so gleeful since they announced copy-protected CDs (which also have done little to discourage swapping).
My roommate was an intern at Sun last summer, and he was assisting the OpenOffice team with resolving compatibility issues with MS Orifice 2000. He said that was the biggest stumbling block for the project, aside from memory management and speed issues. He also said that the DoJ was privately talking to a few of his co-workers and they were interested in widening the probe into monopolistic file format practices. I doubt that the current administration will give it a green light, but if they do, that would help knock down the last barriers to seeing OpenOffice on every Windows desktop in the near future.
VA continues to slip steadilly towards bankruptcy. Most analysts give the company a TTL of ~6 months. That means, if your project is housed on SourceForge, you and your project are going to have to find a new placew to live within the next 6 months. The pipe that VA leases (yes, they pay money for it. No pay, no play.) will dry up leaving you without access and more than likely without adequate warning as well. Thats been the cast with most of the.com's... That doesn't bode well for people who have invested alot of time in centralizing resources.
Maybe now you see my point for all the yelling and screaming I did about how it was a mistake to centralize development at one location--Youre assuming that location is going to survive, when the evidence says it won't.
Lets further examine our mess for a moment--The resources that VA owns that you visit frequently, ala Slashdot, Freshmeat, and others--What's going to happen to them? Is there a plan in place that describes what to do when your parent company hits the skids? If Themes.org can be taken down for several weeks over something as simple as a security breach, it tells me they're largely unprepared for these sorts of events. Everyones got too much sunshine going up their ass to sit down and think about what to do when the party's over.
Don't go tell me "Oh, VA's a good company, they'll find a way to rescue us!" because thats total horseshit. You and I both know that business doesn't work that way. Rob and Jeff can't exactly go back to their dorms..So where's our beloved Slashdot going to move to? If they cant remain profitable on their own, or under the management of a parent company, who's to suggest they can be profitable at all?
Slashdot Mirror
However, the thing that they do not mention in the announcement is that Bell Labs continues to have problems with the chemical bonds between molecules decaying quickly on these transistors. It is similar to the problems that plague engineers of DNA processors, another cutting-edge-but-hopelessly-broken technology. In fact, despite all of these new achievements that promise to revolutionize the industry, silicon is still king and will be king for many years to come.
-CT
The list goes on. Fortunately key escrow is opposed by the very people who run America - large corporations and lobbying groups. And that is why we need to worry about the crap in ATA/PATRIOT instead - because big companies don't care whether or not the government can snoop on anti-WTO activists, detain immigrants forever, or give life sentences to hackers.
-CT
I predict that within two years, every Palm-like device will be running embedded Linux. The advances in CPU power, embedded-friendly features (can you say realtime scheduling), portability, and ease of development will make PalmOS (still stuck in the 90's) and WinCE (never a serious contender anyway) very unattractive, expensive options. As margins fade away and manufacturers look for ways to gain an edge on the competition, Linux will have the clear advantage from the cost perspective. Additionally, Linux-based devices are very popular amongst the technical crowd because of their configurability and stability (especially when compared to other embedded OSs like QNX), which will help prop up sales when the number of rich MBA-types dwindle.
Don't forget, also, that KDE is approaching its 3.0 release and the embedded version is gaining in popularity. I won't be surprised at all if it becomes a serious contender for PDA and cell phone desktops. Porting KDE to PalmOS, WinCE, or QNX would cost some money - but on Linux, it's practically native.
-CT
OR, they can simply DoS the swappers. Unfortunately for them, they are relying on TCP, so they need to disclose their source addresses for the attack to work. And if they do that, we traders can make a database listing all of their IP addresses (kind of like MAPS/ORBS) and block their asses. We will find ways to thwart this approach and we will continue trading.
So, in a nutshell, I am very pleased with their latest strategy. I haven't been so gleeful since they announced copy-protected CDs (which also have done little to discourage swapping).
-CT
Wishful thinking...
-CT
Maybe now you see my point for all the yelling and screaming I did about how it was a mistake to centralize development at one location--Youre assuming that location is going to survive, when the evidence says it won't.
Lets further examine our mess for a moment--The resources that VA owns that you visit frequently, ala Slashdot, Freshmeat, and others--What's going to happen to them? Is there a plan in place that describes what to do when your parent company hits the skids? If Themes.org can be taken down for several weeks over something as simple as a security breach, it tells me they're largely unprepared for these sorts of events. Everyones got too much sunshine going up their ass to sit down and think about what to do when the party's over.
Don't go tell me "Oh, VA's a good company, they'll find a way to rescue us!" because thats total horseshit. You and I both know that business doesn't work that way. Rob and Jeff can't exactly go back to their dorms..So where's our beloved Slashdot going to move to? If they cant remain profitable on their own, or under the management of a parent company, who's to suggest they can be profitable at all?