Well, of course, if this is truly the case, I and many others will stick with our "hacked" 1.0.2/1.1.1 firmware devices (or whatever the latest rev that is still openable is). I use slirp to connect my laptop to the internet fairly often. As for "phone as modem", edge is good for light browsing and IM, very little else, its latency *and* throughput are both too bad for much more, its hard to actually pound such a network, *especially* when AT&T is rolling out true 3G across their network, and thus their backhaul is being expanded amazingly. Basically, a bunch of iPhone users tethered to laptops will be barely noticable in terms of network usage no matter what, unless we are considering some hypothetical iPhone that does 3G+ on at&t.
At least in the US, the EDGE "data calls" are billed flat-rate so this should not matter (you're not technically supposed to have an iphone on anything but at&t with the flat rate data plan). Is this not the case with the worldwide rollouts? If not, why not? That's just absurd. Of course this doesn't hold true for unlocked iPhones, but that's another story, and one apple is not really interested in. Basically there is no need at least in the US for apple to worry about what data carrier the application uses. Actually making a phone call of course is a different story, and I think it is reasonable for *all* phone calls to bring up a confirmation dialog. SMS's are a grey area, perhaps each app can have an allow/deny setting such as on many other phones. I personally pay for unlimited SMS and would be very happy to see applications able to use this feature (one thing I would like especially with the phone not able to suspend and stay on edge (it has to stay mostly active, reducing its battery life to ~4 hours) is an sms-based IM client that uses the preexisting IM gateway like the clients on many older phones did)
I own one, you did not misunderstand, the radio is not even EDGE compatible let alone HSDPA/HSUPA/UMTS, which sadly means its likely dead in the water, but hopefully FIC will upgrade the radio once someone comes out with something they can live with. The real issue is getting a radio that they can interface with most likely, and with the companies that make these things I'm not surprised its a hassle. The current radio is made by TI and its like pulling teeth to get things straightened out with them
The wifi store chooses not to access the edge, its a "conscious decision" on the part of the app (well really the developers). At the API level there is no distinction (well I'm simplifying slightly, there are bits with keeping connections up that are different on edge when you do not have an active transfer), its just different network devices, the wifi showing up as (I think) en0 and the edge as ppp0 (again, from poor memory here). Basically, it would have to be yet more effort spent to lock the applications away from the phone part, and if they *do* choose to do that, then the SDK is essentially worthless (or nearly so), just as it will be worthless if they do not allow some sort of open-source/free-software and "freeware"(I hate that term and what it implies) signing (if they are requiring signed apps). And I know people don't want their apps to have to run as root, but I will say this, if I have a device, I want the *option* to run things as root, its my device. I'll yield to the sensible restriction of not allowing most modifications to the baseband in order to keep from scrambling the airwaves, that's ok, but any other restrictions are just silly.
agribusiness is one of this country's least-exposed messes, and its a real awful mess. Its one of the biggest examples of corporate welfare, one of the biggest examples of differential taxing, and of course we can't forget corn syrup!
No it does not take more energy to refresh the ram. Here's how to tell that. The ram is built on the *same* process & technology (or perhaps even an older process, making it *less* efficient) yet it never gets hot enough to require a heatsink let alone active cooling. Given the same or less efficient process, the same portion of the energy pumped into the system would get turned into heat.
You are wrong, the original unlock was a hardware hack, but only just barely (it was enabling write access through test points)
The current unlock is purely software, 100% all code, never have to open your device or anything
I seriously agree with all of those points, though I would posit the big difference with desktop computers is they are already fairly open. Imagine how you'd feel if palladium were a reality, it'd become just as desperate an issue. Anyhow, mobile phones are indeed an important target for more openness.
Reverse engineering yes, decompiling then using that code no. There is a difference, but its subtle. Basically if you can deduce something from the communication that happens with it then you can reimplement it "safely", but if you have to disassemble/decompile it, you can't use that code. The one way that that does get used is through a system where one person decompiles/disassembles and writes some documentation, then that documentation is passed on through a number of other hands until someone uses it to independantly write a new implementation. I'm simplifying, and I'm sure I got some details wrong, but suffice it to say that simple decompiling can still be covered by copyright (specifically you can't distribute the decompiled stuff any more than you could distribute its compiled form. you are technically allowed to decompile it (licenses aside, of course, because they could concievably try to disallow that, and usually do))
the original source perhaps, but tools exist to extract something close-enough to it from any binary, it is only copyright that really stops this from happening on a dramatic scale. It does happen though from time to time, especially in places where people feel that nobody will be able to trace them back to the binary in question. Of course patents also block this sort of thing but since patents make the process available it seems silly to reverse engineer that process, you're screwed either way
The sad truth is there is a large, vocal group of people who have come to believe that money *is* the thing of value, rather than the [arguably more difficult to grasp] concept of value-to-society being its own reward. They see wealth, not humanity, as a measure of morality.
Nah, it is Libertarian, at least weak-Libertarian, its the dirty little secret they don't want to get out -- they worship wealth, those who have it, in their eyes, are morally righteous by that virtue and that alone, and so of course deserve *more* of it, and those of us who haven't ascended to those rarefied levels are merely not as morally astute, we are evil, and so we don't deserve what we don't have. Now of course not all Libertarians feel this way, but a rather large proportion do.
I wish this was still true in the mobile arena, but Intel is starting to dominate there, more power per watt, and less watts overall, not to mention more per dollar as well (though until it gets outrageous, most mobile users prefer better power-per-watt)
You can integrate code that was originally under another GPL-compatible license into a GPL codebase, this is in fact what "compatibility" means when it comes to other licenses being compatible with the GPL.
Of course you then have to distribute the whole work under the GPL, but that was your plan anyway when you chose to use the GPL for the work.
Actually, while size is a concern, power is the real issue. Consider your average microwave runs at 1kW, this device runs (from an earlier post, I didn't RTFA) at something like 50W, and to cook a whole crowd you'd need on the order of MW, possibly more, so consider just HOW much power that is, and how you might create it (portable nuclear reactor?).
On the other hand, a microwave weapon is very good against electronics, vehicles, etc, by inducing a small yet highly damaging current in anything metallic
Its so very easy for the carrier to cripple it, especially Verizon, but others do it too, they either turn off OBEX completely so you can't get the files onto it, or they restrict where you can upload them to, or they require the ringtone to be added to some proprietary db, etc., there are tens to hundreds of ways they do these things, and its all in the firmware that you couldn't even update if you wanted to b/c they use digital signing tricks and things like physical tokens (though I'm not sure that's as true anymore, tokens do tend to be a pain in the ass to handle)
Nope, since he like most musicians ended up selling the copyrights to this music (something that I fail to see any argument for being legal in the first place) to the labels, even if he (quite obviously) wants to just give it away/change the price/whatever, he can't, he doesn't actually own it.
While I think your points are very sensible, I have to ask an off-topic question, what is wrong in your eyes with net neutrality? The notion of a net *carrier* being able to regulate traffic based on its source and thus create tiers based on its "preferred providers" (read: cartel/companies who are willing to pay them extra) is exactly the wrong road to go down. The reason the net works so well is the carriers are *independant* of the providers, and need to stay this way.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, of course, if this is truly the case, I and many others will stick with our "hacked" 1.0.2/1.1.1 firmware devices (or whatever the latest rev that is still openable is). I use slirp to connect my laptop to the internet fairly often. As for "phone as modem", edge is good for light browsing and IM, very little else, its latency *and* throughput are both too bad for much more, its hard to actually pound such a network, *especially* when AT&T is rolling out true 3G across their network, and thus their backhaul is being expanded amazingly. Basically, a bunch of iPhone users tethered to laptops will be barely noticable in terms of network usage no matter what, unless we are considering some hypothetical iPhone that does 3G+ on at&t.
At least in the US, the EDGE "data calls" are billed flat-rate so this should not matter (you're not technically supposed to have an iphone on anything but at&t with the flat rate data plan). Is this not the case with the worldwide rollouts? If not, why not? That's just absurd. Of course this doesn't hold true for unlocked iPhones, but that's another story, and one apple is not really interested in. Basically there is no need at least in the US for apple to worry about what data carrier the application uses. Actually making a phone call of course is a different story, and I think it is reasonable for *all* phone calls to bring up a confirmation dialog. SMS's are a grey area, perhaps each app can have an allow/deny setting such as on many other phones. I personally pay for unlimited SMS and would be very happy to see applications able to use this feature (one thing I would like especially with the phone not able to suspend and stay on edge (it has to stay mostly active, reducing its battery life to ~4 hours) is an sms-based IM client that uses the preexisting IM gateway like the clients on many older phones did)
I own one, you did not misunderstand, the radio is not even EDGE compatible let alone HSDPA/HSUPA/UMTS, which sadly means its likely dead in the water, but hopefully FIC will upgrade the radio once someone comes out with something they can live with. The real issue is getting a radio that they can interface with most likely, and with the companies that make these things I'm not surprised its a hassle. The current radio is made by TI and its like pulling teeth to get things straightened out with them
The wifi store chooses not to access the edge, its a "conscious decision" on the part of the app (well really the developers). At the API level there is no distinction (well I'm simplifying slightly, there are bits with keeping connections up that are different on edge when you do not have an active transfer), its just different network devices, the wifi showing up as (I think) en0 and the edge as ppp0 (again, from poor memory here). Basically, it would have to be yet more effort spent to lock the applications away from the phone part, and if they *do* choose to do that, then the SDK is essentially worthless (or nearly so), just as it will be worthless if they do not allow some sort of open-source/free-software and "freeware"(I hate that term and what it implies) signing (if they are requiring signed apps). And I know people don't want their apps to have to run as root, but I will say this, if I have a device, I want the *option* to run things as root, its my device. I'll yield to the sensible restriction of not allowing most modifications to the baseband in order to keep from scrambling the airwaves, that's ok, but any other restrictions are just silly.
one glitch there, the iPhone ARM core is at 400MHz not 620, though it does still perform quite well
one little point.
water expands when it gets warm.
lots of water expands a lot.
agribusiness is one of this country's least-exposed messes, and its a real awful mess. Its one of the biggest examples of corporate welfare, one of the biggest examples of differential taxing, and of course we can't forget corn syrup!
No it does not take more energy to refresh the ram. Here's how to tell that. The ram is built on the *same* process & technology (or perhaps even an older process, making it *less* efficient) yet it never gets hot enough to require a heatsink let alone active cooling. Given the same or less efficient process, the same portion of the energy pumped into the system would get turned into heat.
You are wrong, the original unlock was a hardware hack, but only just barely (it was enabling write access through test points) The current unlock is purely software, 100% all code, never have to open your device or anything
I seriously agree with all of those points, though I would posit the big difference with desktop computers is they are already fairly open. Imagine how you'd feel if palladium were a reality, it'd become just as desperate an issue. Anyhow, mobile phones are indeed an important target for more openness.
Some of us like nerdy girls (of course I *am* one too, so I guess my opinion doesn't count as much or something)
Reverse engineering yes, decompiling then using that code no. There is a difference, but its subtle. Basically if you can deduce something from the communication that happens with it then you can reimplement it "safely", but if you have to disassemble/decompile it, you can't use that code. The one way that that does get used is through a system where one person decompiles/disassembles and writes some documentation, then that documentation is passed on through a number of other hands until someone uses it to independantly write a new implementation. I'm simplifying, and I'm sure I got some details wrong, but suffice it to say that simple decompiling can still be covered by copyright (specifically you can't distribute the decompiled stuff any more than you could distribute its compiled form. you are technically allowed to decompile it (licenses aside, of course, because they could concievably try to disallow that, and usually do))
the original source perhaps, but tools exist to extract something close-enough to it from any binary, it is only copyright that really stops this from happening on a dramatic scale. It does happen though from time to time, especially in places where people feel that nobody will be able to trace them back to the binary in question. Of course patents also block this sort of thing but since patents make the process available it seems silly to reverse engineer that process, you're screwed either way
I believe Weird Al had the answer to this one when he said "your windows boots up in a day and a half"
The sad truth is there is a large, vocal group of people who have come to believe that money *is* the thing of value, rather than the [arguably more difficult to grasp] concept of value-to-society being its own reward. They see wealth, not humanity, as a measure of morality.
Nah, it is Libertarian, at least weak-Libertarian, its the dirty little secret they don't want to get out -- they worship wealth, those who have it, in their eyes, are morally righteous by that virtue and that alone, and so of course deserve *more* of it, and those of us who haven't ascended to those rarefied levels are merely not as morally astute, we are evil, and so we don't deserve what we don't have. Now of course not all Libertarians feel this way, but a rather large proportion do.
I wish this was still true in the mobile arena, but Intel is starting to dominate there, more power per watt, and less watts overall, not to mention more per dollar as well (though until it gets outrageous, most mobile users prefer better power-per-watt)
Surprise. Surprise and an almost fanatical devotion to the...wait...wrong story...nevermind
You can integrate code that was originally under another GPL-compatible license into a GPL codebase, this is in fact what "compatibility" means when it comes to other licenses being compatible with the GPL. Of course you then have to distribute the whole work under the GPL, but that was your plan anyway when you chose to use the GPL for the work.
I am an anti-commerce hippie, you insensitive clod :-P
Actually, while size is a concern, power is the real issue. Consider your average microwave runs at 1kW, this device runs (from an earlier post, I didn't RTFA) at something like 50W, and to cook a whole crowd you'd need on the order of MW, possibly more, so consider just HOW much power that is, and how you might create it (portable nuclear reactor?). On the other hand, a microwave weapon is very good against electronics, vehicles, etc, by inducing a small yet highly damaging current in anything metallic
Its so very easy for the carrier to cripple it, especially Verizon, but others do it too, they either turn off OBEX completely so you can't get the files onto it, or they restrict where you can upload them to, or they require the ringtone to be added to some proprietary db, etc., there are tens to hundreds of ways they do these things, and its all in the firmware that you couldn't even update if you wanted to b/c they use digital signing tricks and things like physical tokens (though I'm not sure that's as true anymore, tokens do tend to be a pain in the ass to handle)
I'm saying NOBODY should be able to sign away copyright, not just musicians.
Nope, since he like most musicians ended up selling the copyrights to this music (something that I fail to see any argument for being legal in the first place) to the labels, even if he (quite obviously) wants to just give it away/change the price/whatever, he can't, he doesn't actually own it.
While I think your points are very sensible, I have to ask an off-topic question, what is wrong in your eyes with net neutrality? The notion of a net *carrier* being able to regulate traffic based on its source and thus create tiers based on its "preferred providers" (read: cartel/companies who are willing to pay them extra) is exactly the wrong road to go down. The reason the net works so well is the carriers are *independant* of the providers, and need to stay this way.