A relatively easy way to defeat such an attack is to have LCD-based numbers, and have the number location change each time the keypad is turned on. I've stayed in places with such security, although until now I just figured it was to prevent other people from figuring out your code by watching where you press. Preventing key-wear due to consistent use seems like a much better reason to have such a system.
A regular sized Subway sandwich in Japan is called a 'footlong', despite most units being metric there (and when they aren't metric, they most certainly aren't imperial-based in the British or American sense. Room-size is often measured in 'tatami mats'. Oddly enough, there are different standards for those depending on whether you're from Tokyo or Kyoto.).
Parent here. I wanted to emphasize that from the point-of-view of a particular role, such as Web developer, the necessary-to-understand concepts and skills can change drastically. Think about when that role started, how all one needed was knowledge of simple HTML, and some file-serving mechanics. Now to write an application, one must understand so many new-with-respect-to-web-developers-of-old concepts and skills that someone who had pigeonholed themselves into a specific role could quickly become obsolete. One cannot say that a web developer from 10 years ago can just apply their knowledge to writing webgl fragment shaders for implementing a webgl GUI interface because the 'underlying principles never change'. Sure there were people doing those sorts of things at SGI in the 1980s and 90s, but they sure as hell weren't web developers.
It's perfectly doable to raise a family while staying current on programming languages. It's not as though the underlying principles ever really change, which is why experienced programmers can pick up new languages with consummate ease once they grok the underlying concepts. What you're talking about are idiots who think 'the world' is middle managers who will strip mine your life to get the project done a week earlier. Newsflash, older programmers aren't less capable, just less willing to be fed a shit sandwich than younger programmers.
The underlying concepts do change. People make the mistake of equating programming syntax with software development, which just isn't the case. Sure, syntaxes might be similar, but the concepts you have to deal with are rapidly changing. Going from imperative to declarative programming models. Worrying complex caching issues. Understanding GPU programming models, shaders, and using matricies to transform vector spaces. Asynchronous programming models. Concurrency models. Strategies for distributed state propagation. Various database technologies and their pros and cons. Mobile application development involving complex state management, and having to worry about power efficiency.
You can't just think about development as working with code, because you're inevitably using that code to interface with something, to do some work. Working with new interfaces often require you to understand new underlying concepts. Even if the syntax for manipulating those interfaces works the same as it always has, the logic requires you to stay on your toes, and to learn.
But until then having more cpu or GPU isn't going to let be surf the internet faster or type e-mail faster or even give me longer battery life.
I can't believe this was labeled insightful. I have a device less than a year old, and with a faster CPU I would be able to surf the Internet faster, and type an email faster. With a newer, more efficient processor, I'd get longer battery life.
Rendering webpages on a phone is still slow compared to a desktop machine. There are many cases in which I am waiting for Chrome to render a webpage on my phone, and when there is lag between pressing a link to open it, and the web browser responding to my input.
As for typing emails... many Android keyboards have fairly advanced predictive text functions, and on my phone there is often perceptible lag... more often when the keyboard is first loading, but also sometimes while typing.
I read the article. In the summary, the following is stated:
"The article outlines some of the CAS's failings, such as being unable to detect infringement through a VPN"
The article says no such thing. The reference to VPNs in the article states that if a user is always tunneling through a VPN, Comcast will be unable to inject data into their datastream, and thus the user may never see a "popup" warning in their browser. Added to the fact that users may not be aware that their Comcast service comes with a Comcast email account (or they may never check it), and there is no guarantee that a user will ever see a warning sent by Comcast.
According to anandtech.com, the '20x lower power' statistic is only a reference to the chip's idle power state, not while it's under any sort of processing load.
"atari" means "hit" or "success" in Japanese, thus the name is slightly less meaningless than Memorex, which only has a single definition "A long-extinct dinosaur which was known primarily for its stubby forearms, and long memory".
Perhaps a bit off-topic, but relevant to the OP...
In Linux everything I need comes from one or more trusted software repositories, and all of the updates are performed through the same tool in the same way, so I do not need to familiarize myself with the different update systems for different pieces of software.
In iOS everything is downloaded and installed through the app store, updates are similarly pushed through a single (presumably trusted) source. Same with Android and the various marketplaces and presumably with Windows-based smartphones. (Symbian and RIM aren't really in the game anymore, and it is likely related to this.)
So that leaves Mac OS X and Windows as really the only predominant platforms where you grab stuff from every which where and install it. And IIRC, even Mac OS X tries to consolidate the updates into a central tool (I remember Java and Adobe updates coming through the Mac OS X update tool).
I expect that this model will prevail and within 5 years the majority of software for any system (Windows included) will start coming through central repos (or "App Stores"). Linux has been there for over a decade, but hasn't got their act together with respect to branding, ease-of-use, and revenue sharing (Ubuntu is bridging that gap). So if we can get to a point where software is signed, or at least has a verifiable hash, and it all comes from the same trusted place, then a lot of these issues will be moot.
On Android you can download from third-party sources, including app stores which operate separately from the Android Market. Additionally, those applications have free reign to update themselves. The Amazon App Store must be downloaded outside of the Android Market (due to it being a competing service), and updates itself independently.
The article discusses a keyboard that makes subtle adjustments to the keys. Take a look at this software though:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9b8NlMd79w
It looks much more interesting, with the keyboard software able to infer the orientation and scale of the virtual keyboard from your keypresses alone. They show how it basically transforms everything on the fly depending on where your keypresses are. Google bought them some time ago, and I've been waiting for it to be integrated into Android.
A cynical person might look at the removal of the Superdrive option and say that it's a way to make Mac App Store apps that much more appealing than buying shrink-wrap software.
And to further complicate things, the password that it gets at the end might not even be the right one. Sure, it will work for the specific type of hashing algorithm whose hashes you bruteforced, but if it's just a collision and not the actual password a user used, then it won't work at other sites which use a different hashing algorithm.
Sure, the person who owns the 3DS might have agreed to the terms, but what if a friend comes along and takes a picture using the device? They haven't agreed to allow Nintendo to use their picture.
Sure people are free to take whatever risks they want with their own lives. Regulations are there to stop people taking risks with other people's lives, who don't wish to accept that level of risk.
They're also there to keep desperate and/or ignorant people from being taken advantage of.
"This video contains content from National Geographic, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds."
Phew CRISIS AVERTED. Good thing researchers in Japan can't see this stuff... next thing you know they'd be creating Terminators.
If you want to be as safe as apple's walled garden, stay within the official marketplaces and you get that.
The other alternative would be if the OS asked for user permission before an application could access the internet (just one time, not every time).
Android already does this. When installing an app, it displays all the permissions an app can use, and you get to accept or reject the app at that point. After accepting and then installing the application you no longer get prompted. Network Access is one of the permissions that must be requested by the app.
Read the article. There is a randomly-generated application-specific 16 digit password that is used for things like IMAP and POP3. If someone gets access to that (unlikely, since you would never need to write it down, and Google encrypts IMAP and POP3), they can only access that specific service, and its not going to be the same password you use anywhere else.
To add to the parent's statement, the application-specific passwords you generate aren't temporary. Instead, they continue to work in perpetuity until you decide to revoke them from your Google account page.
Yes, although it's moved to a more logical spot (the URL bar)
When I hover over a link, there's a few things I'm expecting to see. I want to see the protocol, the domain, and finally the end of the link that would have the actual page/file that the link is pointing to. When the status bar is at the top next to the URL, there isn't enough space to display all of those things. I much prefer the status information at the bottom because the available horizontal space is much larger, and there's a better chance I'll be able to see all the info I need. In that sense, I believe locating the status information at the bottom is much more logical.
...That said I will never purchase another Samsung device that needs updating. I was promised Froyo in September after purchasing in June. Still haven't gotten it. Sure I got my own Froyo update in December, but I expected an update and got shafted. I'd read bad reports about Samsung not updating in the past and thought "this time will be different... this is a flagship device." Nope...
Is it really fair to blame Samsung for the lack of updates? I've had a Samsung Galaxy S since October, and it was released with Froyo. That means that Samsung had provided an update for carriers several months ago. The problem isn't Samsung, its your phone carrier which is dragging their heels. Blaming Samsung for that seems disingenuous.
It's possible that the Washington State government is perfectly fine with the situation. After all, I'm sure Microsoft brings in a lot of money to the state despite finding a loophole in this particular area.
In that case, which is the better comparison (with respect to games of course): the difference between PCs and consoles or the difference between Apple computers and the Windows PC ecosystem?
If we compare the iPhone vs. Android situation to PCs versus consoles, then we have an Enthusiast market versus a casual market (where basically different game types work better on either a PC or a console). If we instead make the comparison to Apple versus the PC market, then Apple pretty much lost in that respect, and eventually the iPhone should lose out to the avalanche of rapidly evolving Android devices.
I believe a lot of the innovation and features visible in Steam is driven by Valve's direct experience with creating and expanding their games. From the basic technology for easy updates of games, to easy modification distribution, to being able to easily store game configuration and items server side - these are all features that were important to Valve for their own games, and are now part of (or becoming part of) the vast number of tools available to 3rd parties releasing on Steam. Even things like the in-game IM client was born out of Valve wanting to have such functionality in Counter-Strike (the "Tracker" beta which existed way before Steam was proof of this).
What I'm getting at is that I believe the drive for innovation and experimentation in Steam would be lost on a company which solely viewed Steam as an asset for enabling digital distribution. If Steam and Valve parted ways, I have no doubt that while it's current momentum and leadership position would give it success in the short to mid-term, it's future potential would be harmed.
This is something I've been wondering for a while. Presumably the video is being recorded to some sort of solid state flash memory. If that's the case, then there shouldn't be any moving parts in the camera while it is recording the video. Why do I see the video seem to stop in certain places, and seemingly skip a few tenths of a second?
The only theory I can come up with is that the motion is too great, and the camera's processor is unable to keep up with the increased bitrate?
Some examples of this are @ the:30 mark and the:43 mark in the linked balloon video.
Slashdot Mirror
A relatively easy way to defeat such an attack is to have LCD-based numbers, and have the number location change each time the keypad is turned on. I've stayed in places with such security, although until now I just figured it was to prevent other people from figuring out your code by watching where you press. Preventing key-wear due to consistent use seems like a much better reason to have such a system.
A regular sized Subway sandwich in Japan is called a 'footlong', despite most units being metric there (and when they aren't metric, they most certainly aren't imperial-based in the British or American sense. Room-size is often measured in 'tatami mats'. Oddly enough, there are different standards for those depending on whether you're from Tokyo or Kyoto.).
Parent here. I wanted to emphasize that from the point-of-view of a particular role, such as Web developer, the necessary-to-understand concepts and skills can change drastically. Think about when that role started, how all one needed was knowledge of simple HTML, and some file-serving mechanics. Now to write an application, one must understand so many new-with-respect-to-web-developers-of-old concepts and skills that someone who had pigeonholed themselves into a specific role could quickly become obsolete. One cannot say that a web developer from 10 years ago can just apply their knowledge to writing webgl fragment shaders for implementing a webgl GUI interface because the 'underlying principles never change'. Sure there were people doing those sorts of things at SGI in the 1980s and 90s, but they sure as hell weren't web developers.
It's perfectly doable to raise a family while staying current on programming languages. It's not as though the underlying principles ever really change, which is why experienced programmers can pick up new languages with consummate ease once they grok the underlying concepts. What you're talking about are idiots who think 'the world' is middle managers who will strip mine your life to get the project done a week earlier. Newsflash, older programmers aren't less capable, just less willing to be fed a shit sandwich than younger programmers.
The underlying concepts do change. People make the mistake of equating programming syntax with software development, which just isn't the case. Sure, syntaxes might be similar, but the concepts you have to deal with are rapidly changing. Going from imperative to declarative programming models. Worrying complex caching issues. Understanding GPU programming models, shaders, and using matricies to transform vector spaces. Asynchronous programming models. Concurrency models. Strategies for distributed state propagation. Various database technologies and their pros and cons. Mobile application development involving complex state management, and having to worry about power efficiency.
You can't just think about development as working with code, because you're inevitably using that code to interface with something, to do some work. Working with new interfaces often require you to understand new underlying concepts. Even if the syntax for manipulating those interfaces works the same as it always has, the logic requires you to stay on your toes, and to learn.
But until then having more cpu or GPU isn't going to let be surf the internet faster or type e-mail faster or even give me longer battery life.
I can't believe this was labeled insightful. I have a device less than a year old, and with a faster CPU I would be able to surf the Internet faster, and type an email faster. With a newer, more efficient processor, I'd get longer battery life. Rendering webpages on a phone is still slow compared to a desktop machine. There are many cases in which I am waiting for Chrome to render a webpage on my phone, and when there is lag between pressing a link to open it, and the web browser responding to my input. As for typing emails... many Android keyboards have fairly advanced predictive text functions, and on my phone there is often perceptible lag... more often when the keyboard is first loading, but also sometimes while typing.
I read the article. In the summary, the following is stated:
"The article outlines some of the CAS's failings, such as being unable to detect infringement through a VPN"
The article says no such thing. The reference to VPNs in the article states that if a user is always tunneling through a VPN, Comcast will be unable to inject data into their datastream, and thus the user may never see a "popup" warning in their browser. Added to the fact that users may not be aware that their Comcast service comes with a Comcast email account (or they may never check it), and there is no guarantee that a user will ever see a warning sent by Comcast.
According to anandtech.com, the '20x lower power' statistic is only a reference to the chip's idle power state, not while it's under any sort of processing load.
And have your master password stolen by the seemingly inevitable trojan keylogger that is on every clueless person's machine.
"atari" means "hit" or "success" in Japanese, thus the name is slightly less meaningless than Memorex, which only has a single definition "A long-extinct dinosaur which was known primarily for its stubby forearms, and long memory".
Perhaps a bit off-topic, but relevant to the OP...
In Linux everything I need comes from one or more trusted software repositories, and all of the updates are performed through the same tool in the same way, so I do not need to familiarize myself with the different update systems for different pieces of software.
In iOS everything is downloaded and installed through the app store, updates are similarly pushed through a single (presumably trusted) source. Same with Android and the various marketplaces and presumably with Windows-based smartphones. (Symbian and RIM aren't really in the game anymore, and it is likely related to this.)
So that leaves Mac OS X and Windows as really the only predominant platforms where you grab stuff from every which where and install it. And IIRC, even Mac OS X tries to consolidate the updates into a central tool (I remember Java and Adobe updates coming through the Mac OS X update tool).
I expect that this model will prevail and within 5 years the majority of software for any system (Windows included) will start coming through central repos (or "App Stores"). Linux has been there for over a decade, but hasn't got their act together with respect to branding, ease-of-use, and revenue sharing (Ubuntu is bridging that gap). So if we can get to a point where software is signed, or at least has a verifiable hash, and it all comes from the same trusted place, then a lot of these issues will be moot.
On Android you can download from third-party sources, including app stores which operate separately from the Android Market. Additionally, those applications have free reign to update themselves. The Amazon App Store must be downloaded outside of the Android Market (due to it being a competing service), and updates itself independently.
The article discusses a keyboard that makes subtle adjustments to the keys. Take a look at this software though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9b8NlMd79w It looks much more interesting, with the keyboard software able to infer the orientation and scale of the virtual keyboard from your keypresses alone. They show how it basically transforms everything on the fly depending on where your keypresses are. Google bought them some time ago, and I've been waiting for it to be integrated into Android.
A cynical person might look at the removal of the Superdrive option and say that it's a way to make Mac App Store apps that much more appealing than buying shrink-wrap software.
And to further complicate things, the password that it gets at the end might not even be the right one. Sure, it will work for the specific type of hashing algorithm whose hashes you bruteforced, but if it's just a collision and not the actual password a user used, then it won't work at other sites which use a different hashing algorithm.
Sure, the person who owns the 3DS might have agreed to the terms, but what if a friend comes along and takes a picture using the device? They haven't agreed to allow Nintendo to use their picture.
Sure people are free to take whatever risks they want with their own lives. Regulations are there to stop people taking risks with other people's lives, who don't wish to accept that level of risk.
They're also there to keep desperate and/or ignorant people from being taken advantage of.
"This video contains content from National Geographic, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds." Phew CRISIS AVERTED. Good thing researchers in Japan can't see this stuff... next thing you know they'd be creating Terminators.
If you want to be as safe as apple's walled garden, stay within the official marketplaces and you get that.
The other alternative would be if the OS asked for user permission before an application could access the internet (just one time, not every time).
Android already does this. When installing an app, it displays all the permissions an app can use, and you get to accept or reject the app at that point. After accepting and then installing the application you no longer get prompted. Network Access is one of the permissions that must be requested by the app.
Read the article. There is a randomly-generated application-specific 16 digit password that is used for things like IMAP and POP3. If someone gets access to that (unlikely, since you would never need to write it down, and Google encrypts IMAP and POP3), they can only access that specific service, and its not going to be the same password you use anywhere else.
To add to the parent's statement, the application-specific passwords you generate aren't temporary. Instead, they continue to work in perpetuity until you decide to revoke them from your Google account page.
Now that it's notable, it has a chance of being accepted as a Wikipedia article right?
Yes, although it's moved to a more logical spot (the URL bar)
When I hover over a link, there's a few things I'm expecting to see. I want to see the protocol, the domain, and finally the end of the link that would have the actual page/file that the link is pointing to. When the status bar is at the top next to the URL, there isn't enough space to display all of those things. I much prefer the status information at the bottom because the available horizontal space is much larger, and there's a better chance I'll be able to see all the info I need. In that sense, I believe locating the status information at the bottom is much more logical.
...That said I will never purchase another Samsung device that needs updating. I was promised Froyo in September after purchasing in June. Still haven't gotten it. Sure I got my own Froyo update in December, but I expected an update and got shafted. I'd read bad reports about Samsung not updating in the past and thought "this time will be different... this is a flagship device." Nope...
Is it really fair to blame Samsung for the lack of updates? I've had a Samsung Galaxy S since October, and it was released with Froyo. That means that Samsung had provided an update for carriers several months ago. The problem isn't Samsung, its your phone carrier which is dragging their heels. Blaming Samsung for that seems disingenuous.
It's possible that the Washington State government is perfectly fine with the situation. After all, I'm sure Microsoft brings in a lot of money to the state despite finding a loophole in this particular area.
In that case, which is the better comparison (with respect to games of course): the difference between PCs and consoles or the difference between Apple computers and the Windows PC ecosystem?
If we compare the iPhone vs. Android situation to PCs versus consoles, then we have an Enthusiast market versus a casual market (where basically different game types work better on either a PC or a console). If we instead make the comparison to Apple versus the PC market, then Apple pretty much lost in that respect, and eventually the iPhone should lose out to the avalanche of rapidly evolving Android devices.
I believe a lot of the innovation and features visible in Steam is driven by Valve's direct experience with creating and expanding their games. From the basic technology for easy updates of games, to easy modification distribution, to being able to easily store game configuration and items server side - these are all features that were important to Valve for their own games, and are now part of (or becoming part of) the vast number of tools available to 3rd parties releasing on Steam. Even things like the in-game IM client was born out of Valve wanting to have such functionality in Counter-Strike (the "Tracker" beta which existed way before Steam was proof of this). What I'm getting at is that I believe the drive for innovation and experimentation in Steam would be lost on a company which solely viewed Steam as an asset for enabling digital distribution. If Steam and Valve parted ways, I have no doubt that while it's current momentum and leadership position would give it success in the short to mid-term, it's future potential would be harmed.
This is something I've been wondering for a while. Presumably the video is being recorded to some sort of solid state flash memory. If that's the case, then there shouldn't be any moving parts in the camera while it is recording the video. Why do I see the video seem to stop in certain places, and seemingly skip a few tenths of a second?
:30 mark and the :43 mark in the linked balloon video.
The only theory I can come up with is that the motion is too great, and the camera's processor is unable to keep up with the increased bitrate? Some examples of this are @ the