Perhaps the author of that article had a lot of insight and perhaps they already new about this news.
Not a helluva lot of insight - people have been speculating about an 'iPhone' for years now.
There's even some lovely mockups of what an Apple phone would look like here.
Either way, I'll follow suit and ask how much longer will it be until the iPod is your computer, media player, internet access, cell phone, credit card, personal identification, financial recorder/advisor, taser, keyless entry and pace maker?
Whilst I pesonally think portable device convergence is inevitable (and a good thing), there is no way in hell I am going to trust Apple (or any other company) with my credit card, personal ID and keyless entry.
I mean even a relatively reputable company like Apple has side-stepped claims about the itunes data collection (Apple claims they do not "collect" information, but a marketing company (Omniture) does the actual processing and we do not know what Omniture does with it).
Captain Obvious's point was that OS X (Darwin) is exactly like Linux in that it is open source. Now, if you want a GUI, THAT's where the difference comes in. X and KDE/Gnome/whatever are open source. Aqua isn't.
*sigh* OSX is more then darwin. Yes, Darwin is Open source, no OSX is not open source.
I really don't think you'd want to run Aqua on your ATM, embedded security monitoring system, DVD recorder or cell phone any more than you'd want to run Gnome on them. You'd want to use something way lighter, and you can.
You really just don't get it do you? If you had the aqua source, you could make it lighter. Or just use it's widget libraries, or whatever.
Just pointing out what seperates linux (used in the distro sense) & OSX. Not saying Apple should open Aqua.
Well thanks for pointing that out Captain Obvious.
I was trying to point out that OSX is not just linux with lots of polish - because it lacks the one of the things that makes linux really great - access to the source.
Your arguments that I don't want the source, have no need for the source, etc are not relevant to this thread.
Now, on to your point.
I think Apple's GUI is way too high-overhead for a portable device, so I think the desirablity of such in embedded environments would be questionable at best.
Embedded is not the same as portable. Wikipedia says An embedded system is a special-purpose computer system, which is completely encapsulated by the device it controls. And lists ATMs, Security monitoring systems and DVD recorders amongst embedded devices. OSX would be suitable for many of these - if you had access to the Aqua source.
The Mac is like Linux would be if huge amounts of care were poured into its design.
No - the Mac is a very nice Unix-like o/s with lovely eye-candy.
It is however nothing like linux.
Does it run in embedded environments? Can I access the source? Can I port it to sparc? If there's a bug can I fix it?
Under linux - the answer to all of them is yes, under Apple no.
Re:Extremely easy to disable, and more info
on
iTunes is Malware?
·
· Score: -1, Troll
Further - though we admittedly don't know this since Apple doesn't explain how it is using the data - there is no proof that Apple is doing anything but merely changing the MiniStore display based on what track you are listening to (which is very likely exactly what they're doing); not aggregating or "tracking your music preferences".
Did you read the same article I did?
the fact that Apple is both sending information from your copy of iTunes, along with cookie information that may identify you, as well as sending song information to a metrics server, seems to be a serious breach of trust. (And their end-user license agreement, or EULA, contains no language that suggests they will do so.)
Cookie info, metrics and nothing in the EULA. Looks like a serious cock-up on Apple's part to me.
Cue the Apple apologists however - after all, people who accept DRM, will accept anything.
Every digital camera I've ever used (which is only about 5 or 6, so I may be wrong here) has only used short filenames. 'IMG_1234.JPG'. These aren't even covered by the patent.
From the page I linked to:
Additionally, the FAT file system licensing package includes rights to FAT file system innovations for which Microsoft has filed a claim for a patent that the U.S. Patent Office has not yet granted. This licensing program also provides licensees with rights to Microsoft FAT file system issued and pending patents outside the United States and to the Microsoft FAT file system specification and certain test specifications.
So why do they pay royalties?
To prevent the chance that Microsoft will sue you in the future or in an overseas market.
But as it caps at $250,000 the really high volume guys will be able to spread it out more... $250,000/10,000,000 = 2.5c
I'm not sure what your point is here.
Do you mean because these royalty payments only affect small companies that it doesn't matter?
And you do you realise that 2.5c is still huge - all those 16MB thumb drives given away by (cheap) companies in promotions only cost about 10c each in bulk.
What exactly would prevent these low margin, high volume USB key manufacturers selling their memory sticks unformatted?
Nothing actually prevents that true - however, you miss the real point.
Why should they pay a MS tax after MS's bait'n'switch tactics with this filesystem?
Why can't they value add by pre-formatting (or even providing free content like portable openoffice or redistibutable music?
It's not like hard drive manufacturers have to pay a FAT tax -- it's just the device manufacturers whose stuff actually uses FAT, like digital camera makers.
If a HDD manufacturer is distributing a FAT filesystem, they're almost certainly distributing a MS O/S & paying the MS tax.
It would be stupid for Microsoft to enforce this patent because of the migration issue. If they were smart, they'd immediately turn around and put this into the public domain. If they don't, I can't see the marketplace relying on the hope that someday Microsoft won't try to enforce the patent. So if they were protecting their own interests that's fine, but they need to send a clear message that this move was only done to make sure that nobody would screw them
Wishful thinking aside - Microsoft have allready stated they're going to enforce the patent:
A license for manufacturers of certain consumer electronics devices--Pricing for this license is $0.25 per unit for each of the following types of devices that use removable solid state media to store data:
* Portable digital still cameras
* Portable digital video cameras
* Portable digital still/video cameras
* Portable digital audio players
* Portable digital video players
* Portable digital audio and video players
* Multifunction printers
* Electronic photo frames
* Electronic musical instruments
* Standard televisions
At 25c a unity, thats going to add up to a helluva lot of money.
I'm really hoping that these "papers" end up being serious material about new technologies which run on Linux, rather than another 100 papers on "Why Linux Should Do as I Say to Achieve World Domination".
1) Memorex buys Beijing 'Chung Brand' USB stick and sells it labelled as made by Memorex. 2)Fred Bloggs buys Beijing 'Chung Brand' USB stick and sells it labelled as made by Memorex.
It doesn't work like that - it works like this:
1) Memorex buys Beijing 'Chung Brand' USB stick, performs QA on it, discards 20% due to deficiences and sells it labelled as made by Memorex (with 100% markup)
2)Fred Bloggs buys Beijing 'Chung Brand' USB stick and sells it labelled as made by Memorex. Performs no QA on - and fails to notice this a bad batch from 'Chung' where 40% of units are faulty.
Memorex does more then just stick their badge on something. They give the assurance that their brand is worth.
Now what that assurance is worth, is completely dependant on what experience you've had with the company in the past, word of mouth, etc etc - but without trademark protection, all of that is worthless
Item 1. is already covered by counterfeiting laws. Item 2, currently isn't covered. Nothing forces Memorex to disclose that its selling a rebadged Chung Brand product.
Why should they be forced to disclosed the company they bought from? As long as its clearly labelled "Made in China"?
I bet they were *real* laptops and *real* mp3 players, the only difference was the label. What you're saying is they can fake *labels*. But that's just because the USA has become a fake brand country, companies license a brand like Polaroid or Caterpillar, buy in cheap Asian crap, stick a "Polaroid" badge on it and charge loads more money because people think they're buying American.
I generally agree with your sentiment about Western Consumers getting sucked into overpaying for cheap crap because of a label (CK clothes instantly spring to mind).
However - I do actually think trademark is one area of 'intellectual property' that helps consumers.
If I buy a laptop that has "AMD Sempron 3000+" written on it, I would like to *know* that that's what it is - not an 900MHz Intel Celeron. Similarly, I want the video memory to be whats advertised, etc etc etc.
Who cares if those fake brands get pirated, since its the difference between an overprice Asian product and a cheap Asian product, it's still jobs in Asia.
Sometimes you do not get a rebranded equivilant, but something that is completely inferior to what you expected.
I would be extemely pissed off if I bought one of the Fake AMD CPUs that were going around a while ago, to find it overclocked, ran hotter, and had a shorter lifespan that it should.
Apple is about to release a new generation of iBooks and/or Powerbooks, most likely including Intel iBooks at least. This month. So hold your horses.
Hmmmmmn,
Not so sure I'd be going for a first generation Apple product if I were looking for reliability....
Its also worth nothing that Apple are under investigation in Australia for ignoring local warranty rules.
Not too sure what I'd reccommend for a reliable laptop these days - certainly not Apple, Toshiba, HP/Compaq, Acer/Asus (shudder). A few years ago, it would have been a Thinkpad, but since the Leveno takeover, I really have no idea.
It's a fucking joke. Sensitivity is fast becoming a reactionary trait, anyway.
Did you miss Points 1, 4 & 5?
1) Some originality would be nice. 4) Some originality would be nice. Every time there's a French story, its like reading fark. 5) Please see points 1 and 5.
Hmmmmn, seems like maybe I realised it was a joke - but wanted a little originality?
Seems like you're a little sensitive about the fact that you've been making the same goddamn joke for the last four years.
20 comments - the majority of which are 'French surrender' jokes.
1) Some originality would be nice. 2) I thought 2006 was the year the American public would wake up to the way they're manipulated (can you remember having the same contempt for the french prior to their [justified] opposition to Iraq II?) 3) Leave the french-hatred to countries that have a reason to hate the french. Like New Zealand or just about anywhere in the South Pacific 4) Some originality would be nice. Every time there's a French story, its like reading fark. 5) Please see points 1 and 5.
What happened to the old mantra of 'Legality doesn't equal moralily' that's always wheeled out during the piracy articles?
God - that is really a stupid comment.
1) Slashdot is a collection of individuals - not a hive mind, no matter what you'd like to think.
2) I don't think I've ever commented upon a/. piracy story - definitely not with a morality!=legality comment (although I do agree with that point of view)
3) I consider Microsoft to be immoral in every way that I said they were illegal in my previous quote - here you go: (spelling mistakes and all)
Microsoft are not considedered evil for branching into other areas of business. They're evil because they immorally utilized their dominance in one area to extend their business into other areas, stifling competition and therefore harming consumers.
Tell me how Google are immorally utilizing their dominance in search to extend into other areas? Tell me how Google have stifled competition.
Until them I don't see them 'following' MS at all.
For the record - I do think Google are acting immorally in China - but that has nothing to do with what I or the person I was replying to were talking about.
Microsoft is so evil for branching into pretty much everything, yet Google appears to be following suit.
Can't help but feed the trolls this morning!
Microsoft are not considedered evil for branching into other areas of business. They're evil because they illegally utilized their dominance in one area to extend their business into other areas, stifling competition and therefore harming consumers.
Tell me how Google are illegally utilizing their dominance in search to extend into other areas? Tell me how Google have stifled competition.
Until them I don't see them 'following' MS at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Get a clue, troll-
If you're going to accuse someone of trolling, you want to be pretty sure about your facts.
if you have a blank admin password, XP prevents ANY remote network access using that account.
Hmmmn, thats an interesting band-aid.
You are actually more secure with a blank password.
Really? More secure with a blank password? I doubt it.
Would make privilige escalation pretty damn easy after you'd hacked a user account.
And it makes all that least priviliged user stuff that MS goes on about a little irrelevant too.
Not a helluva lot of insight - people have been speculating about an 'iPhone' for years now.
There's even some lovely mockups of what an Apple phone would look like here.
Either way, I'll follow suit and ask how much longer will it be until the iPod is your computer, media player, internet access, cell phone, credit card, personal identification, financial recorder/advisor, taser, keyless entry and pace maker?
Whilst I pesonally think portable device convergence is inevitable (and a good thing), there is no way in hell I am going to trust Apple (or any other company) with my credit card, personal ID and keyless entry.
I mean even a relatively reputable company like Apple has side-stepped claims about the itunes data collection (Apple claims they do not "collect" information, but a marketing company (Omniture) does the actual processing and we do not know what Omniture does with it).
Captain Obvious's point was that OS X (Darwin) is exactly like Linux in that it is open source. Now, if you want a GUI, THAT's where the difference comes in. X and KDE/Gnome/whatever are open source. Aqua isn't.
*sigh* OSX is more then darwin. Yes, Darwin is Open source, no OSX is not open source.
I really don't think you'd want to run Aqua on your ATM, embedded security monitoring system, DVD recorder or cell phone any more than you'd want to run Gnome on them. You'd want to use something way lighter, and you can.
You really just don't get it do you? If you had the aqua source, you could make it lighter. Or just use it's widget libraries, or whatever.
Just pointing out what seperates linux (used in the distro sense) & OSX. Not saying Apple should open Aqua.
Well thanks for pointing that out Captain Obvious.
I was trying to point out that OSX is not just linux with lots of polish - because it lacks the one of the things that makes linux really great - access to the source.
Your arguments that I don't want the source, have no need for the source, etc are not relevant to this thread.
Now, on to your point.
I think Apple's GUI is way too high-overhead for a portable device, so I think the desirablity of such in embedded environments would be questionable at best.
Embedded is not the same as portable. Wikipedia says An embedded system is a special-purpose computer system, which is completely encapsulated by the device it controls. And lists ATMs, Security monitoring systems and DVD recorders amongst embedded devices. OSX would be suitable for many of these - if you had access to the Aqua source.
Sure you can access the source, to the extent you would want to for embedded environments, anyway.
What? You think you don't need a gui in an embedded environment?
The Mac is like Linux would be if huge amounts of care were poured into its design.
No - the Mac is a very nice Unix-like o/s with lovely eye-candy.
It is however nothing like linux.
Does it run in embedded environments? Can I access the source? Can I port it to sparc? If there's a bug can I fix it?
Under linux - the answer to all of them is yes, under Apple no.
Did you read the same article I did?
Cookie info, metrics and nothing in the EULA. Looks like a serious cock-up on Apple's part to me.
Cue the Apple apologists however - after all, people who accept DRM, will accept anything.
I don't know about Malware - but it certainly includes that nagging, install shortcuts everywhere piece of nagware Quicktime.
From the page I linked to: So why do they pay royalties?
To prevent the chance that Microsoft will sue you in the future or in an overseas market.
But as it caps at $250,000 the really high volume guys will be able to spread it out more... $250,000/10,000,000 = 2.5c
I'm not sure what your point is here.
Do you mean because these royalty payments only affect small companies that it doesn't matter?
And you do you realise that 2.5c is still huge - all those 16MB thumb drives given away by (cheap) companies in promotions only cost about 10c each in bulk.
What exactly would prevent these low margin, high volume USB key manufacturers selling their memory sticks unformatted?
Nothing actually prevents that true - however, you miss the real point.
Why should they pay a MS tax after MS's bait'n'switch tactics with this filesystem?
Why can't they value add by pre-formatting (or even providing free content like portable openoffice or redistibutable music?
It's not like hard drive manufacturers have to pay a FAT tax -- it's just the device manufacturers whose stuff actually uses FAT, like digital camera makers.
If a HDD manufacturer is distributing a FAT filesystem, they're almost certainly distributing a MS O/S & paying the MS tax.
Wishful thinking aside - Microsoft have allready stated they're going to enforce the patent:
From Microsoft's FAT licensing page:
At 25c a unity, thats going to add up to a helluva lot of money.
What does that mean to companies that sell stuff like USB flash drives or CF cards? They'll obviously have to pay royalties, of course,
Yep, they will pricing has been set to 25c per unit.
Utterly crippling in the low margin, high volume USB storage market (especially at the low end)
and that means a mass migration to a new filesystem to avoid such payments.
And exactly what filesystem could that be? That is supported out of the box by 95% of desktop PCs?
This - if anyone was still wondering why a monopoly is so dangerous in the hands of an immoral company like MS.
You can use your overwhelming advantage in one market (desktop PCs) to exert influence in another.
But what new FS will that be? FAT32? EXT2/3?
Fat32? Patents cover it.
EXT2/3? Get real. Who wants to install 3rd party drivers every time you plugin your USB device?
If you feel the need to defend your story submission criteria/methods, then that means you yourself feel that it isn't up to snuff.
No - he specifically said that it was to do with the amount of offtopic comments (that get modded up) that are the problem.
Many people come to slashdot for the comments rather then story (I am one of them).
It's good that Taco is trying to address this.
Hmmmmn, lets have a look at the 2005 schedule:
Two examples (chosen at random):
Looks like its a serious conference, for serious linux hackers.
You've helped me illustrate my point beautifully.
1) Memorex buys Beijing 'Chung Brand' USB stick and sells it labelled as made by Memorex.
2)Fred Bloggs buys Beijing 'Chung Brand' USB stick and sells it labelled as made by Memorex.
It doesn't work like that - it works like this:
1) Memorex buys Beijing 'Chung Brand' USB stick, performs QA on it, discards 20% due to deficiences and sells it labelled as made by Memorex (with 100% markup)
2)Fred Bloggs buys Beijing 'Chung Brand' USB stick and sells it labelled as made by Memorex. Performs no QA on - and fails to notice this a bad batch from 'Chung' where 40% of units are faulty.
Memorex does more then just stick their badge on something. They give the assurance that their brand is worth.
Now what that assurance is worth, is completely dependant on what experience you've had with the company in the past, word of mouth, etc etc - but without trademark protection, all of that is worthless
Item 1. is already covered by counterfeiting laws. Item 2, currently isn't covered. Nothing forces Memorex to disclose that its selling a rebadged Chung Brand product.
Why should they be forced to disclosed the company they bought from? As long as its clearly labelled "Made in China"?
Agreed, but isn't this the exact same thing:
You're being sold "foo" when in reality it's "foobar".
In my example, "foo" is Italian Made Designer Shoe, and "foobar" is Chinese Made shoe imported into Italy.
If you indeed bought a shoe that says "Italian Made" that was actually made in China, then your example does match mine.
However that is not the case - these shoes will say prominently "Italian designed" or similar, but have in smaller print "Made in China".
My theoretical laptop does not have "Designed like an AMD Sempron 3000+", and in smaller print "Celeron 900"
There is a huge difference between some advertising that is deceptive about the country of origin & fraudulently claiming one good is another.
I bet they were *real* laptops and *real* mp3 players, the only difference was the label. What you're saying is they can fake *labels*. But that's just because the USA has become a fake brand country, companies license a brand like Polaroid or Caterpillar, buy in cheap Asian crap, stick a "Polaroid" badge on it and charge loads more money because people think they're buying American.
I generally agree with your sentiment about Western Consumers getting sucked into overpaying for cheap crap because of a label (CK clothes instantly spring to mind).
However - I do actually think trademark is one area of 'intellectual property' that helps consumers.
If I buy a laptop that has "AMD Sempron 3000+" written on it, I would like to *know* that that's what it is - not an 900MHz Intel Celeron. Similarly, I want the video memory to be whats advertised, etc etc etc.
Who cares if those fake brands get pirated, since its the difference between an overprice Asian product and a cheap Asian product, it's still jobs in Asia.
Sometimes you do not get a rebranded equivilant, but something that is completely inferior to what you expected.
I would be extemely pissed off if I bought one of the Fake AMD CPUs that were going around a while ago, to find it overclocked, ran hotter, and had a shorter lifespan that it should.
Apple is about to release a new generation of iBooks and/or Powerbooks, most likely including Intel iBooks at least. This month. So hold your horses.
Hmmmmmn,
Not so sure I'd be going for a first generation Apple product if I were looking for reliability....
Its also worth nothing that Apple are under investigation in Australia for ignoring local warranty rules.
Not too sure what I'd reccommend for a reliable laptop these days - certainly not Apple, Toshiba, HP/Compaq, Acer/Asus (shudder). A few years ago, it would have been a Thinkpad, but since the Leveno takeover, I really have no idea.
You're quite correct - it would be stupid for MS to ignore the iPod segment.
:-)
I was simply pointing out that they're a company that do not pay for other companies tech if they can possibly help it.
You shouldn't ignore history unless you want to repeat it
If they offered FairPlay up for licensing, I guarantee you Microsoft would be interested.
You guarantee that do you? (Is that you Bill?)
Microsoft doesn't license anything - they developed wmv rather then licensing quicktime and so on.
It is simply not in their nature to pay royalties to another company - especially Apple who've been a thorn in their side all these years.
I suspect Microsoft are waiting to see what happens Real's Harmony before embracing and extending fairplay.
It's a fucking joke. Sensitivity is fast becoming a reactionary trait, anyway.
Did you miss Points 1, 4 & 5?Hmmmmn, seems like maybe I realised it was a joke - but wanted a little originality?
Seems like you're a little sensitive about the fact that you've been making the same goddamn joke for the last four years.
For Christ's Sake.
20 comments - the majority of which are 'French surrender' jokes.
1) Some originality would be nice.
2) I thought 2006 was the year the American public would wake up to the way they're manipulated (can you remember having the same contempt for the french prior to their [justified] opposition to Iraq II?)
3) Leave the french-hatred to countries that have a reason to hate the french. Like New Zealand or just about anywhere in the South Pacific
4) Some originality would be nice. Every time there's a French story, its like reading fark.
5) Please see points 1 and 5.
God - that is really a stupid comment.
1) Slashdot is a collection of individuals - not a hive mind, no matter what you'd like to think.
2) I don't think I've ever commented upon a
3) I consider Microsoft to be immoral in every way that I said they were illegal in my previous quote - here you go: (spelling mistakes and all)For the record - I do think Google are acting immorally in China - but that has nothing to do with what I or the person I was replying to were talking about.
Microsoft is so evil for branching into pretty much everything, yet Google appears to be following suit.
Can't help but feed the trolls this morning!
Microsoft are not considedered evil for branching into other areas of business. They're evil because they illegally utilized their dominance in one area to extend their business into other areas, stifling competition and therefore harming consumers.
Tell me how Google are illegally utilizing their dominance in search to extend into other areas? Tell me how Google have stifled competition.
Until them I don't see them 'following' MS at all.