The cellphone companies need to completly change their pricing model.
Ditch the lame idea of charging for incoming calls and SMS and move those costs onto the sender/caller.
Ditch the "data plan" crap and just charge people for the data they actually use. They should offer data blocks (where you can buy in blocks of 500mb or 1gb or whatever at a cheaper price than the pay-as-you-go rate for the same amount of data). And since they are now charging people for the data they actually use, they could fully allow tethering and mobile hot-spot functions on all their phones without a problem (if someone wants to use 5gb a month tethering their laptop to their phone, they will have to pay for it)
Even if it was Osama Bin Laden brutally raping and murdering little kids and posting footage of same on YouTube it doesn't justify giving the government ANY right whatsoever to do wholesale data collection of telephone calls, bank account data, retail purchases, library borrowings or (as in this case) internet data (emails, web access etc).
I have no problem whatsoever with the FBI/cops/etc going to an ISP and saying "we have x IP address at y time, please find out which customer that was and set up a tap/trace on that customer so we can bust the guy" but wholesale data gathering is something I will NEVER support.
What we need is for someone to come up with something that shows why continued erosion of civil liberties is bad and wont do a thing to stop criminals (including Child Pornographers) or terrorists (including Osama Bin Laden). Something that even the most clueless person can understand.
If you can show people that what their government wants to do wont actually stop whatever criminal activity people want the government to stop (and more to the point, suggest an alternative that will be more effective in stopping the criminal activity in question) people might just listen.
Even Sci-Fi viewers who dont download are likely to have PVRs and other things which let them fast-forward the ads. Plus the things the sci-fi audience are interested in buying and the things the advertisers want to advertise dont tend to match up.
As for advertising a "direct-to-video" type sci-fi show (made and sold directly without being given TV airtime) one way would be to make a pilot and make it available for free. Then if the show is any good, people will download the pilot and watch it and want more (and buy the other episodes).
Kind of like the Shareware concept for computer games (which worked GREAT for games like Doom IIRC) except for a TV show.
Looking at the list of P&G brands on Wikipedia I cant find a single product on there that I have bought in the last year except possibly Duracell batteries (and if I was going to boycott P&G, I would ensure I bought Energizer batteries instead)
What I want to see is for someone to step up to the plate and provide evidence that OpenOffice (or LibreOffice or whatever its called these days) and Microsoft really do render documents differently.
Specifically, a set of documents along with screenshots of the document in LibreOffice and the document in Word showing the differences in formatting between the 2 and an explanation as to why these differences matter.
There is no reason (other than a lack of information/patches) why it wouldn't be possible to improve the reading and writing of the Office document formats in LibreOffice so that more documents will appear the same in LibreOffice and Microsoft Office.
Whats missing is the ARM-powered linux netbook. Take your typical netbook, remove the expensive ATOM hardware and replace it with a nice ARM SOC (the kind found in things like the iPad or Nokia N900). Run a nice arm-optimized linux distro on it with a full range of software (internet, office, media playback, photography etc) and build in a good range of support for external peripherals so that they work when you plug them in without extra effort (e.g. tethering a mobile phone, connecting a camera, using USB mass storage or USB input devices etc)
Although I think the problem is, most people have this expectation that if it looks like a laptop, its going to work like a laptop and run WoW or Word or Photoshop or whatever other windows-based software they want. Tablets are viewed differently because people dont see them as a "computer" in the way they view a netbook.
Given how sucky the ATI binary drivers are and how the open source drivers are so much better, maybe ATI should stop working on them at all and make the open source codebase the only driver on Linux for ATI cards.
Although Android is open source, actually installing new software on real-world devices is usually difficult and generally requires hacks. Unlike Linux or Firefox or whatever where a fix may be in a point release soon after its known about, if a flaw is found on an Android handset, it may only be fixed months down the track in a manufacturer update or it may never be fixed (unless someone has fixed it in a custom ROM and you are willing to go through all the sometimes-tricky steps to install those ROMs)
With the release of the metldr key, every single piece of code that runs on the PS3 CELL CPU (with the exception of a few really low level bits) can be changed in any way you want. This includes every single piece of code that talks to PSN. No matter what Sony does, it will be possible to make the PS3 answer with the right answers.
This is why the PS3 hacks is far more difficult to detect than the XBOX JTAG hack (on the XBOX, large chunks of the OS and kernel aren't under hacker control AFAIK)
Microsoft cant allow side-loading in its current form because it would cause major backlash from carrier partners concerned about things not otherwise permitted (e.g. tethering) as well as from vendors releasing paid software in the marketplace concerned about piracy.
I suspect Microsoft wants to allow side-loading but only if they can lock things down enough.
Section 1201(f) of the DMCA grants an exemption to the anti-circumvention provisions for interoperability. Would that apply in this case? Does anything released by Fail0verflow or GeoHot allow piracy of game titles?
IANAL, can anyone who knows more about this stuff than me see a reason why a S1201(f) defence wouldn't apply here?
An ABI spec is all well and good but it doesn't solve the fact that Visual C++ and GCC are never going to implement the same C++ ABI. Microsoft is never going to implement the GCC ABI (or the one in that standards doc which may well be the same, I havent checked GCC recently) GCC is never going to implement the Microsoft ABI (its undocumented and has lots of corner cases plus the GCC-on-windows people generally dont like things that have been figured out by reverse engineering Microsoft binaries)
As someone who has been dealing with C++ ABI issues for a while now, it just wont work. Getting all the compiler vendors on a given platform to agree to a standard ABI (particularly on platforms like Windows where there are so many options) is never going to happen.
Why doesn't NVIDIA buy Via? They get the x86 license (and given the recent rulings by the FTC that Intel are abusing their market power, I think Intel would be dumb to end Via's x86 license just because they were acquired by NVIDIA)
NVIDIA could use the acquired CPU tech alongside its ION GPU tech to produce a viable competitor to ATOM in the netbook space.
So end the feedlots and produce meat the way it USED to be made, with cattle roaming the open range until someone decides they are fat enough and rounds them up to be sent to a factory and turned into Steak or Hamburgers.
Wouldn't that solve the problem of needing all that grain to feed all those cows?
There are plenty of markets where there is competition. PCs for example, there are plenty of manufacturers of windows PCs. Or fast food joints, there are plenty of choices there. Or petrol stations, there are choices of which petrol station to fill up at.
Slashdot Mirror
The cellphone companies need to completly change their pricing model.
Ditch the lame idea of charging for incoming calls and SMS and move those costs onto the sender/caller.
Ditch the "data plan" crap and just charge people for the data they actually use. They should offer data blocks (where you can buy in blocks of 500mb or 1gb or whatever at a cheaper price than the pay-as-you-go rate for the same amount of data). And since they are now charging people for the data they actually use, they could fully allow tethering and mobile hot-spot functions on all their phones without a problem (if someone wants to use 5gb a month tethering their laptop to their phone, they will have to pay for it)
Yet those same people will complain loudly if the government threatens to do something like legalize gay marriage or legalize pot...
Even if it was Osama Bin Laden brutally raping and murdering little kids and posting footage of same on YouTube it doesn't justify giving the government ANY right whatsoever to do wholesale data collection of telephone calls, bank account data, retail purchases, library borrowings or (as in this case) internet data (emails, web access etc).
I have no problem whatsoever with the FBI/cops/etc going to an ISP and saying "we have x IP address at y time, please find out which customer that was and set up a tap/trace on that customer so we can bust the guy" but wholesale data gathering is something I will NEVER support.
What we need is for someone to come up with something that shows why continued erosion of civil liberties is bad and wont do a thing to stop criminals (including Child Pornographers) or terrorists (including Osama Bin Laden). Something that even the most clueless person can understand.
If you can show people that what their government wants to do wont actually stop whatever criminal activity people want the government to stop (and more to the point, suggest an alternative that will be more effective in stopping the criminal activity in question) people might just listen.
Even Sci-Fi viewers who dont download are likely to have PVRs and other things which let them fast-forward the ads. Plus the things the sci-fi audience are interested in buying and the things the advertisers want to advertise dont tend to match up.
As for advertising a "direct-to-video" type sci-fi show (made and sold directly without being given TV airtime) one way would be to make a pilot and make it available for free. Then if the show is any good, people will download the pilot and watch it and want more (and buy the other episodes).
Kind of like the Shareware concept for computer games (which worked GREAT for games like Doom IIRC) except for a TV show.
Looking at the list of P&G brands on Wikipedia I cant find a single product on there that I have bought in the last year except possibly Duracell batteries (and if I was going to boycott P&G, I would ensure I bought Energizer batteries instead)
No-one who wants genuine change could get the media airtime required to stand a chance of being elected.
Get a Nokia N900. No firmware locks at all and more open than any Android handset.
Oh and if you do for some reason want Android, there is a N900 port at all.
Yep, the N900 is far more open than ANY Android handset (Nexus S included)
I worked for a government department (my contract just finished) doing software development and that department was running IE7 on Windows XP.
What I want to see is for someone to step up to the plate and provide evidence that OpenOffice (or LibreOffice or whatever its called these days) and Microsoft really do render documents differently.
Specifically, a set of documents along with screenshots of the document in LibreOffice and the document in Word showing the differences in formatting between the 2 and an explanation as to why these differences matter.
There is no reason (other than a lack of information/patches) why it wouldn't be possible to improve the reading and writing of the Office document formats in LibreOffice so that more documents will appear the same in LibreOffice and Microsoft Office.
Whats missing is the ARM-powered linux netbook. Take your typical netbook, remove the expensive ATOM hardware and replace it with a nice ARM SOC (the kind found in things like the iPad or Nokia N900). Run a nice arm-optimized linux distro on it with a full range of software (internet, office, media playback, photography etc) and build in a good range of support for external peripherals so that they work when you plug them in without extra effort (e.g. tethering a mobile phone, connecting a camera, using USB mass storage or USB input devices etc)
Although I think the problem is, most people have this expectation that if it looks like a laptop, its going to work like a laptop and run WoW or Word or Photoshop or whatever other windows-based software they want. Tablets are viewed differently because people dont see them as a "computer" in the way they view a netbook.
Given how sucky the ATI binary drivers are and how the open source drivers are so much better, maybe ATI should stop working on them at all and make the open source codebase the only driver on Linux for ATI cards.
Although Android is open source, actually installing new software on real-world devices is usually difficult and generally requires hacks. Unlike Linux or Firefox or whatever where a fix may be in a point release soon after its known about, if a flaw is found on an Android handset, it may only be fixed months down the track in a manufacturer update or it may never be fixed (unless someone has fixed it in a custom ROM and you are willing to go through all the sometimes-tricky steps to install those ROMs)
But letting people (developers especially) pick things like a good mouse and keyboard would be a good thing IMO.
With the release of the metldr key, every single piece of code that runs on the PS3 CELL CPU (with the exception of a few really low level bits) can be changed in any way you want. This includes every single piece of code that talks to PSN.
No matter what Sony does, it will be possible to make the PS3 answer with the right answers.
This is why the PS3 hacks is far more difficult to detect than the XBOX JTAG hack (on the XBOX, large chunks of the OS and kernel aren't under hacker control AFAIK)
Why do you think AT&T has asked manufacturers to disable side-loading on every android handset they sell?
Microsoft cant allow side-loading in its current form because it would cause major backlash from carrier partners concerned about things not otherwise permitted (e.g. tethering) as well as from vendors releasing paid software in the marketplace concerned about piracy.
I suspect Microsoft wants to allow side-loading but only if they can lock things down enough.
Section 1201(f) of the DMCA grants an exemption to the anti-circumvention provisions for interoperability.
Would that apply in this case? Does anything released by Fail0verflow or GeoHot allow piracy of game titles?
IANAL, can anyone who knows more about this stuff than me see a reason why a S1201(f) defence wouldn't apply here?
An ABI spec is all well and good but it doesn't solve the fact that Visual C++ and GCC are never going to implement the same C++ ABI. Microsoft is never going to implement the GCC ABI (or the one in that standards doc which may well be the same, I havent checked GCC recently)
GCC is never going to implement the Microsoft ABI (its undocumented and has lots of corner cases plus the GCC-on-windows people generally dont like things that have been figured out by reverse engineering Microsoft binaries)
Said ABI is not a standard for C, its a standard for Windows. (STDCALL)
C++ has a much more complicated ABI.
As someone who has been dealing with C++ ABI issues for a while now, it just wont work. Getting all the compiler vendors on a given platform to agree to a standard ABI (particularly on platforms like Windows where there are so many options) is never going to happen.
Why doesn't NVIDIA buy Via? They get the x86 license (and given the recent rulings by the FTC that Intel are abusing their market power, I think Intel would be dumb to end Via's x86 license just because they were acquired by NVIDIA)
NVIDIA could use the acquired CPU tech alongside its ION GPU tech to produce a viable competitor to ATOM in the netbook space.
Lets hope Intel and NVIDIA can end their fighting so that NVIDIA can make chipsets for the latest Intel CPUs again.
So end the feedlots and produce meat the way it USED to be made, with cattle roaming the open range until someone decides they are fat enough and rounds them up to be sent to a factory and turned into Steak or Hamburgers.
Wouldn't that solve the problem of needing all that grain to feed all those cows?
There are plenty of markets where there is competition.
PCs for example, there are plenty of manufacturers of windows PCs.
Or fast food joints, there are plenty of choices there.
Or petrol stations, there are choices of which petrol station to fill up at.