Usability on mobile devices is not magically better on Android. Proper mobile interface design is possible with existing toolkits. Android just adds an additonal layer of complexity (separate codebase and JNI) and offers no compatibility with the wider open source ecosystem.
The problem with Android, IMO, is that the entire ecosystem composing it and much of what surrounds it is entirely insular, and to no great benefit.
It shares no common libraries or interfaces with what you find in most Linux distributions. It uses a unique libc that no other distribution uses. It uses a file system layout that is not found anywhere else. Its GUI rendering subsystem is completely unique and incompatible with all others.
The end result is that changes to Android stay within the Android system and do not benefit open source projects outside of it. And projects outside of it require heavy rewrites to work, at all, on Android. Not to mention that Android has no real repository type system, so you're left trading.apk files and latching on to the market, which is only available on the default builds of some devices and not at all on others.
Maemo was developed with that compatibility in mind, and is a large part of the reason I bought it. It was most of what the OpenMoko Freerunner tried to be, and MeeGo only improved the openness aspect of it. MeeGo allowed mobile devices to retain continuity with the rest of the open source ecosystem you find in most desktop Linux systems, thus changes and improvements to both ends benefits everyone. In addition, it removed the non-device-specific closed bits and created a platform independent of any one handset vendor.
Android leaves you a second (or more likely, third) class citizen in this effort, as the AOSP does not, last I checked, flow upstream into the Android core and the AOSP only receives the latest changes to Android after it's been delivered to device manufacturers (see Honeycomb and Motorola.)
So this is very much a Microsoft victory against Open Source, if not Free Software, projects in the mobile space. And Android is not a way forward that is very fair to end users and non-corporate developers.
It disheartens me to see people so excited over what OnLive promises, since in the end it's only "benefit" over properly designed games is to the publishers, via perfect and unbreakable DRM. You get "higher detail, higher resolution" games crammed down through heavy compression over a high latency network on to a tiny screen, so no real gain there. You get nasty control schemes forced upon you by lack of any real tactile controls.
Never mind that OnLive's payment schemes keep shifting. I expect it will likely end up in the state of "pay retail (or near retail) for a game that requires a subscription to keep going." Which is where they initially chartered it.
As android is open source, any interested manufacturer can jump in an decide to develop this kind of support.
And they'll have to reimplement it every time Google moves the OS in a new direction. Not that this matters, seeing as how OnLive is all about streaming video and not actually executing anything.
Go explain that to Motorola and every other Android vendor that don't make rooting trivial for those who buy their devices unlocked. The companies in question impose lock down regardless of how you buy it.
And this is the problem of using entirely custom stuff that makes you either bend over backwards to make it work or hope that the sole development team adds support for it.
Whereas if this had been using Xorg (or maybe Wayland) it'd be a known supported capability. Oh well, Go Android!
I like the design, now if only it had a stronger processor (say Cortex-A9, which natively supports multiple displays) and a better mobile OS.
Actually I'd prefer it if the thing was like the LG enV with two displays (one inside, one outside) and a physical keyboard. Having worked with both the Android and iPhone soft keyboards, I can say without a doubt that they piss me off to no end.
Corporations are simply groups of individuals who freely enter into an agreement.
But a corporation acts in its own interest, for the sole goal of producing wealth. It may actively undermine the peripheral interests of its shareholders or employees, so long as it generates a return on their investment.
A marriage is a corporation of sorts
Between two individuals who have inherent rights. Arguably, marriage and its recognition is a human right and thus not a valid comparison.
Any corporation consists of an explicit list of members, and acts on the basis of their rights as individuals.
The individual having rights does not necessarily imply that a legal fiction has or deserves rights, nor that it inherits them from the people it is composed of.
These devices usually have pretty good security policies. The problem comes from the fact they're almost universally applied against the user, and not for the user. IE it's not "how do we keep the system safe from outside snoopers, or rogue applications," it is "how do we keep the user out of the sensitive segments, but ensure the software they run can snoop necessary information."
Well I can't read the article in question, as the site is blocked here at work. However others I know who are reading it state that the article contradicts the headline.
And my statement is primarily derived from my experience in the community, which seems to largely consist of whiny fans who hate to spend money on their hobby because "they show it on TV for free!"
It has a fairly strong U.S. fanbase that will likely make publishing a run of Region 1 DVDs profitable for both the Japanese and North American companies involved.
You can say that but I suspect the fanbase is, like most show-specific fanbases in Anime, small, vocal, and won't hesitate to find any excuse to not buy.
Almost universally, fansubbing groups place recommendations at the start/intercession/end of their subs urging their audience to buy the anime when it becomes licensed in their area. Many also suggest that everyone cease distribution of the series at that point as well.
Which largely amounts to nothing. The number of fansub viewers so wildly outweighs the number of buyers it's ridiculous and shows keep getting distributed no matter what.
The worst part are people who whine about what is being made, have shows they enjoy, but never buy them. Then they have the audacity to wonder why more shows they like aren't being made.
And even had VideoLAN been the ones to put it on the store, each individual developer holds the copyright to their work. So the "incident" would have been likely regardless.
The release of diplomatic cables arguably did a lot to damage fraternity between nations.
Only if you see fraternity between nations as the interactions between their governments. The people of those nations, on the other hand, may get along much better as a result.
Humiliate abusive governments, make it obvious what they do. Both the US Federal Government and its meddling in the affairs of other nations and the oppressive governments of the middle east. Maybe then we can come to an understanding without worthless warmongers, dictators, and politicians getting in the way?
The Nobel Peace Prize means absolutely nothing now. It was blatantly given to someone who had not earned it and did not deserve it, and that person is Barack Obama. He wasn't even in office long enough to help or hinder peace for anyone when it was given to him.
Some might say the prize was devalued when it was given to warmongers. Some might say the award was given as an encouragement, to try and influence his path.
It's clear that this once-lofty prize has become infected and tainted by the very politics and cronyism that has corrupted most other institutions. So yeah, this is a nice gesture, but it's just a token one with no real meaning.
Whose "cronys" might these be? Does Obama or as I imagine is rolling through your head, "the left," have cronies in the committee?
Oh and for you more childish types who instantly polarize when Obama is mentioned, grow up.
So says the person who chose Obama as THE defining moment that the Peace Prize was worthless.
The funny thing is those papers are used in semiconductor bulk packaging to serve as a warning, not that the parts are unusable due to water but that a pre-bake may be necessary to drive water out that entered the packaging as a result of ambient humidity.
So yeah, anything that involves thermal shifts resulting in possible condensation can set these off while not harming the phone in the slightest. I don't know why anyone thinks these are in any way reliable.
I'm not going to have to walk around with a clunky, crappy, inferior smartphone in my pocket just because of "principals".
So either: - You have no principles or - Your principles mean nothing, being that they're as solid as wet toilet paper
Not that I'm necessarily talking about Android, I use an N900. But of course, so long as Apple can keep people discarding "principles" instead of sticking with them and pushing for "less evil" solutions, they win.
I still won't touch them, so long as they continue to dictate that open source is not welcome in the mobile space.
Slashdot Mirror
Usability on mobile devices is not magically better on Android. Proper mobile interface design is possible with existing toolkits. Android just adds an additonal layer of complexity (separate codebase and JNI) and offers no compatibility with the wider open source ecosystem.
The problem with Android, IMO, is that the entire ecosystem composing it and much of what surrounds it is entirely insular, and to no great benefit.
It shares no common libraries or interfaces with what you find in most Linux distributions. It uses a unique libc that no other distribution uses. It uses a file system layout that is not found anywhere else. Its GUI rendering subsystem is completely unique and incompatible with all others.
The end result is that changes to Android stay within the Android system and do not benefit open source projects outside of it. And projects outside of it require heavy rewrites to work, at all, on Android. Not to mention that Android has no real repository type system, so you're left trading .apk files and latching on to the market, which is only available on the default builds of some devices and not at all on others.
Maemo was developed with that compatibility in mind, and is a large part of the reason I bought it. It was most of what the OpenMoko Freerunner tried to be, and MeeGo only improved the openness aspect of it. MeeGo allowed mobile devices to retain continuity with the rest of the open source ecosystem you find in most desktop Linux systems, thus changes and improvements to both ends benefits everyone. In addition, it removed the non-device-specific closed bits and created a platform independent of any one handset vendor.
Android leaves you a second (or more likely, third) class citizen in this effort, as the AOSP does not, last I checked, flow upstream into the Android core and the AOSP only receives the latest changes to Android after it's been delivered to device manufacturers (see Honeycomb and Motorola.)
So this is very much a Microsoft victory against Open Source, if not Free Software, projects in the mobile space. And Android is not a way forward that is very fair to end users and non-corporate developers.
It disheartens me to see people so excited over what OnLive promises, since in the end it's only "benefit" over properly designed games is to the publishers, via perfect and unbreakable DRM. You get "higher detail, higher resolution" games crammed down through heavy compression over a high latency network on to a tiny screen, so no real gain there. You get nasty control schemes forced upon you by lack of any real tactile controls.
Never mind that OnLive's payment schemes keep shifting. I expect it will likely end up in the state of "pay retail (or near retail) for a game that requires a subscription to keep going." Which is where they initially chartered it.
Oh and fuck this FIVE MINUTE DELAY BETWEEN POSTS!
And they'll have to reimplement it every time Google moves the OS in a new direction. Not that this matters, seeing as how OnLive is all about streaming video and not actually executing anything.
Go explain that to Motorola and every other Android vendor that don't make rooting trivial for those who buy their devices unlocked. The companies in question impose lock down regardless of how you buy it.
And this is the problem of using entirely custom stuff that makes you either bend over backwards to make it work or hope that the sole development team adds support for it.
Whereas if this had been using Xorg (or maybe Wayland) it'd be a known supported capability. Oh well, Go Android!
I like the design, now if only it had a stronger processor (say Cortex-A9, which natively supports multiple displays) and a better mobile OS.
Actually I'd prefer it if the thing was like the LG enV with two displays (one inside, one outside) and a physical keyboard. Having worked with both the Android and iPhone soft keyboards, I can say without a doubt that they piss me off to no end.
IIRC, the exception was limited to mobile phones.
Which is stupid anyway, such lock down shouldn't be permitted.
But a corporation acts in its own interest, for the sole goal of producing wealth. It may actively undermine the peripheral interests of its shareholders or employees, so long as it generates a return on their investment.
Between two individuals who have inherent rights. Arguably, marriage and its recognition is a human right and thus not a valid comparison.
The individual having rights does not necessarily imply that a legal fiction has or deserves rights, nor that it inherits them from the people it is composed of.
These devices usually have pretty good security policies. The problem comes from the fact they're almost universally applied against the user, and not for the user. IE it's not "how do we keep the system safe from outside snoopers, or rogue applications," it is "how do we keep the user out of the sensitive segments, but ensure the software they run can snoop necessary information."
Yes, really. I think it says a lot about how serious they are about it.
Thankfully, nothing in Anime, even the worst stuff, is as bad or as outright shitty as Twilight.
Oh and what's with the damned FIVE MINUTE DELAY between posts, Slashdot? Are you trying to kill the site?
Well I can't read the article in question, as the site is blocked here at work. However others I know who are reading it state that the article contradicts the headline.
And my statement is primarily derived from my experience in the community, which seems to largely consist of whiny fans who hate to spend money on their hobby because "they show it on TV for free!"
It has a fairly strong U.S. fanbase that will likely make publishing a run of Region 1 DVDs profitable for both the Japanese and North American companies involved.
You can say that but I suspect the fanbase is, like most show-specific fanbases in Anime, small, vocal, and won't hesitate to find any excuse to not buy.
Which largely amounts to nothing. The number of fansub viewers so wildly outweighs the number of buyers it's ridiculous and shows keep getting distributed no matter what.
The worst part are people who whine about what is being made, have shows they enjoy, but never buy them. Then they have the audacity to wonder why more shows they like aren't being made.
And even had VideoLAN been the ones to put it on the store, each individual developer holds the copyright to their work. So the "incident" would have been likely regardless.
That and they'd probably arrest him at some point.
Only if you see fraternity between nations as the interactions between their governments. The people of those nations, on the other hand, may get along much better as a result.
Humiliate abusive governments, make it obvious what they do. Both the US Federal Government and its meddling in the affairs of other nations and the oppressive governments of the middle east. Maybe then we can come to an understanding without worthless warmongers, dictators, and politicians getting in the way?
Some might say the prize was devalued when it was given to warmongers. Some might say the award was given as an encouragement, to try and influence his path.
Whose "cronys" might these be? Does Obama or as I imagine is rolling through your head, "the left," have cronies in the committee?
So says the person who chose Obama as THE defining moment that the Peace Prize was worthless.
Because everywhere else (except maybe Japan) you can buy an iPhone off contract and they cost a whole lot more.
No they aren't. It only looks like that because you can't buy them in the US without agreeing to a 2 year contract with enormous monthly fees.
Then they're nobody, same as Samsung, Motorola, LG, etc.
Nokia doesn't want to be like them.
There's been zero veracity to any rumor or wet dream of blind Android supporters spouted to date.
Sad that the mobile space is so full of closed or NIH-riddled platforms.
The funny thing is those papers are used in semiconductor bulk packaging to serve as a warning, not that the parts are unusable due to water but that a pre-bake may be necessary to drive water out that entered the packaging as a result of ambient humidity.
So yeah, anything that involves thermal shifts resulting in possible condensation can set these off while not harming the phone in the slightest. I don't know why anyone thinks these are in any way reliable.
So either:
- You have no principles or
- Your principles mean nothing, being that they're as solid as wet toilet paper
Not that I'm necessarily talking about Android, I use an N900. But of course, so long as Apple can keep people discarding "principles" instead of sticking with them and pushing for "less evil" solutions, they win.
I still won't touch them, so long as they continue to dictate that open source is not welcome in the mobile space.