It's just more FUD from the Slashdot anti-Android astroturf brigade.
Reality is a little different:
The bigger view comparing ICS with other Android versions shows how ICS is the only one of them that has grown its penetration percentage in the last period, and that Gingerbread may have started its S-curve decline, echoing the one that Froyo in green below has already been through:
The takeaway here? Well, despite declines, those other OSs are still being sold and used. ICS in total, he believes, now represents about 42 million devices in use, compared to 260 million running 2.3, and 70m still on 2.2, aka Froyo.
It's not difficult to imagine a world where Javascript is basically the common bytecode, and with bridges to native APIs it becomes possible to access all hardware, do anything, from a web app that is running on any platform, be it iOS, Windows, Android, Linux, etc.
Or you could download xPud and give it a try.
The user interface, Plate, is a combination of Mozilla Gecko Runtime and desktop integration with the underlying Linux stack. That makes it very fast, quick to boot, small (under 35MB), and binary compatible with normal Linux apps.
That's the last thing manufacturers want. They saw what happened to the PC hardware market, which was basically a race to the bottom on price.
Too late.
Chinese companies like MediaTek, Allwinner and RockChip are already producing and selling very capable low cost SoCs. Manufacturers are already using them in $150 phones that perform better than last year's premium handsets.
I've said this before, but I don't think we're too far away from seeing very usable phones cheap enough to be retailing in blister-packs in supermarkets.
Also how about virtual machines for testing for all those, with all known display sizes as easy-to-configure test options and atomatic generation of binaries for each version.
Likewise Eclipse makes it simple enough to target any OS version. The problem is if you use and ICS-specifc function, it won't work on devices with earlier versions of Android. As a result, most of us design/target 2.2 and ignore all the recent cool stuff.
I seem to recall email apps at least as early as 1990 detecting email addresses and phone numbers, modem apps offering to dial said number on a modem, etc.
I think there was an aRexx script on Amigas that did that even earlier. I have vague memories of discussions about how to get around the use of @ in email as well as in AmigaGuide and MultiView.
Apple is in danger of triggering Armageddon. Google has been fairly good natured so far, but if they decide to start a war things can only get worse for the consumer.
I doubt it'll affect consumers much.
Apple's likely to have a bit to worry about if they take on Google though, especially now Google have Moto designs like the E 690in their hands.
But to anyone who was involved with mobile devices at the time, the precursors of Apple's designs were clear; they took bits from PalmOS Cobalt, Prizm, Maemo and others.
As far as the physical design of the phone goes, it's all about fashion. Before about 2006, smartphones were all silver or grey, had a curved lower "chin" where the button cluster lived and still-curved but flatter top. By late 2006 though, most phones marketed as stylish (LG Prada, Samsung Chocolate & F700 etc) were dark or black, becoming much more squared off and had minimalist button designs.
I think Apple did well, they designed an iconic phone with components like processors and capacitive screens that were just becoming available at reasonable prices. However, I have no doubt if the iPhone hadn't been released, there would still be dozens of similar looking phones on the market, because that's where fashion and technology was taking them.
Apple's been clever to ride that fashion, but that doesn't mean they're entitled to a free ride.
Wasn't there something about him having sex with her while she was asleep? That isn't exactly consensual.
I know this is Slashdot and all, but even if you have no experience in the subject, at least consider the physics and biology involved.
Without drugs, staying asleep during sex just doesn't happen. Early morning drowsy sex often does happen (my partner calls it "waking her nicely", and between couples who've already established a sexual relationship, doesn't normally involve stopping to ask explicit permission.
If consent was withdrawn when she woke, then Assange should have done the same, but that's not what's being said in the accusations.
I support every woman's right to say "no" to sex at any time, and in normal circumstances I'd side with the Swedish girls involved. In this instance, the stories seem to be very carefully crafted to skirt the divide between outright prosecutable acts and legally consented sex. Crafted well enough in fact, to justify prosecution, while avoiding accusations of perjury.
I could be wrong, but that suggests to me that the women making the accusations might have been primed by legally-experienced third parties.
Wow, this post went from "+4 Insightful" to "0 Troll" in the time it took me to get a glass of milk -- WTFLOL?!
"Army of fake social media friends to promote propaganda
It's recently been revealed that the U.S. government contracted HBGary Federal for the development of software which could create multiple fake social media profiles to manipulate and sway public opinion on controversial issues by promoting propaganda. It could also be used as surveillance to find public opinions with points of view the powers-that-be didn't like. It could then potentially have their "fake" people run smear campaigns against those "real" people."
Run all the existing Android apps, but get the nice modern multitasking capable UI of Luna's card based interface, and get the ability to develop easily HTML5+Javascript apps thanks to Luna and Enyo frameworks.
This is actually where all OSs should be heading. RIM's Playbook already has Android app compatibility, and since the Davlik VM is both open source and has been through the legal and patent mill, there shouldn't be any impediment to adding it to any other OS.
It'd be fascinating to see the results when operating systems have to compete on merit instead of lockin, wouldn't it?
What was so "innovative" about the shape of the corners on the iPad that it needs this much legal protection?
Nothing, but patent trolling is one of the fastest growth industries in the US. In addition, it prevents newer, more agile companies disrupting established revenue streams with novel products. It's no surprise companies like Apple are joining in.
Patent trolls curb innovation and cost the U.S. $29B in 2011
A new study shows that patent lawsuits are not only costing the country billions of dollars but are also placing the burden on small and medium-size companies, which slows invention.
Suspension of disbelief is an essential ingredient for any kind of storytelling. With any film or TV series, the viewer has to ignore the reality that they are viewing a two-dimensional moving image on a screen and temporarily accept it as reality in order to be entertained.
Watching or even skipping adverts breaks that suspension and drags viewers out of the diegesis on screen. For a lot of TV that's not important, and I wouldn't care, but for a show I want to be absorbed in, it's a deal breaker.
Yep, I use that too. (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.stericson.permissions)
Actually, Android has most of what Eben asks for, but managing it (even with apps like Permissions Denied LBE Privacy Guard or PDroid) is complicated and requires understanding of the risks.
"A central design point of the Android security architecture is that no application, by default, has permission to perform any operations that would adversely impact other applications, the operating system, or the user. This includes reading or writing the user's private data (such as contacts or e-mails), reading or writing another application's files, performing network access, keeping the device awake, etc."
If you need an excuse to buy another gadget, check out this...
Second screen applications involve interactivity between smart phones, tablets, or other devices and TV. A second screen application could be a controller for a Google TV application or it could add more functionality to a Google TV application. For example, the YouTube Remote application enables users to browse videos on their smart phone and play them on Google TV
more a matter of "no regulation". just a medium with a defined peak and no consequences in hardware for driving the average too high.
There have been consequences in software though.
MythTV has been using the difference in loudness/dynamic range to identify and skip commercials. I hope these measures don't compromise that, I'd hate to have to start watching adverts again...
I'm in Australia, and we didn't even get a connection into US ARPAnet until the early 1990s,
There were a few connections around, though mostly through business or university mainframes. I remember messaging and playing Empire or Star Trek with one of those green fanfold keyboard consoles in the early '80s, then getting a bit more serious and using the WMC VAX system in the late '80s to explore. From memory, there was an X25 PAD over in Queensland that could hop over to the US.
I know companies that don't aim at maximizing profits can be sued by their shareholders
Not true. And even if you WERE trying to maximise value to shareholders, there's a distinction between long-term sustainability and short term profit.
The Myth of Profit Maximizing
“It is literally – literally – malfeasance for a corporation not to do everything it legally can to maximize its profits. That’s a corporation’s duty to its shareholders.”
Since this sentiment is so familiar, it may come as a surprise that it is factually incorrect: In reality, there is nothing in any U.S. statute, federal or state, that requires corporations to maximize their profits. More surprising still is that, in this instance, the untruth was not uttered as propaganda by a corporate lobbyist but presented as a fact of life by one of the leading lights of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing, Sen. Al Franken.
Slashdot Mirror
It's just more FUD from the Slashdot anti-Android astroturf brigade.
Reality is a little different:
The bigger view comparing ICS with other Android versions shows how ICS is the only one of them that has grown its penetration percentage in the last period, and that Gingerbread may have started its S-curve decline, echoing the one that Froyo in green below has already been through:
The takeaway here? Well, despite declines, those other OSs are still being sold and used. ICS in total, he believes, now represents about 42 million devices in use, compared to 260 million running 2.3, and 70m still on 2.2, aka Froyo.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/03/melting-point-for-ics-its-share-of-android-penetration-is-growing-while-others-falling/
It's not difficult to imagine a world where Javascript is basically the common bytecode, and with bridges to native APIs it becomes possible to access all hardware, do anything, from a web app that is running on any platform, be it iOS, Windows, Android, Linux, etc.
Or you could download xPud and give it a try.
The user interface, Plate, is a combination of Mozilla Gecko Runtime and desktop integration with the underlying Linux stack. That makes it very fast, quick to boot, small (under 35MB), and binary compatible with normal Linux apps.
It runs from USB, so is easy to experiment with.
That's the last thing manufacturers want. They saw what happened to the PC hardware market, which was basically a race to the bottom on price.
Too late.
Chinese companies like MediaTek, Allwinner and RockChip are already producing and selling very capable low cost SoCs. Manufacturers are already using them in $150 phones that perform better than last year's premium handsets.
http://armdevices.net/category/chip-provider/mediatek/
I've said this before, but I don't think we're too far away from seeing very usable phones cheap enough to be retailing in blister-packs in supermarkets.
Also how about virtual machines for testing for all those, with all known display sizes as easy-to-configure test options and atomatic generation of binaries for each version.
You mean this one? http://developer.android.com/tools/devices/emulator.html AVD makes it pretty simple to set up most configurations.
Likewise Eclipse makes it simple enough to target any OS version. The problem is if you use and ICS-specifc function, it won't work on devices with earlier versions of Android. As a result, most of us design/target 2.2 and ignore all the recent cool stuff.
Am I supposed to be impressed or something?
Interested, perhaps.
Android has some serious tools to help with robotics and autonomous vehicles, and being open source, it's nice to learn on, and free.
Android Open Accessory Development Kit (ADK)
http://developer.android.com/tools/adk/index.html
Arduino SDK board
http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardADK
There's been a huge surge in robotics projects as a result.
I seem to recall email apps at least as early as 1990 detecting email addresses and phone numbers, modem apps offering to dial said number on a modem, etc.
I think there was an aRexx script on Amigas that did that even earlier. I have vague memories of discussions about how to get around the use of @ in email as well as in AmigaGuide and MultiView.
Apple is in danger of triggering Armageddon. Google has been fairly good natured so far, but if they decide to start a war things can only get worse for the consumer.
I doubt it'll affect consumers much.
Apple's likely to have a bit to worry about if they take on Google though, especially now Google have Moto designs like the E 690in their hands.
https://www.google.com/search?q=motorola-e690&hl=en&safe=off&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=cOfuT9DDHqSXiQfC0-iADQ&ved=0CFYQsAQ&biw=1920&bih=1040
The first time I saw an iPhone, i bet the bloke who was with me that Apple had bought Mizi Research's Prizm Linux stack. http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Korean-Linux-smartphone-stack-achieves-new-release/
I lost the bet of course.
But to anyone who was involved with mobile devices at the time, the precursors of Apple's designs were clear; they took bits from PalmOS Cobalt, Prizm, Maemo and others.
As far as the physical design of the phone goes, it's all about fashion. Before about 2006, smartphones were all silver or grey, had a curved lower "chin" where the button cluster lived and still-curved but flatter top. By late 2006 though, most phones marketed as stylish (LG Prada, Samsung Chocolate & F700 etc) were dark or black, becoming much more squared off and had minimalist button designs.
I think Apple did well, they designed an iconic phone with components like processors and capacitive screens that were just becoming available at reasonable prices. However, I have no doubt if the iPhone hadn't been released, there would still be dozens of similar looking phones on the market, because that's where fashion and technology was taking them.
Apple's been clever to ride that fashion, but that doesn't mean they're entitled to a free ride.
Slide to unlock? Unified search bar?
I wonder, do the engineers and techs working at Apple feel ashamed all this trolling?
I know it's management and legal who make the decisions, but still...
Only if he gazed too long into the iAbyss.
Agh, damn it! I hate that. )
Wasn't there something about him having sex with her while she was asleep? That isn't exactly consensual.
I know this is Slashdot and all, but even if you have no experience in the subject, at least consider the physics and biology involved.
Without drugs, staying asleep during sex just doesn't happen. Early morning drowsy sex often does happen (my partner calls it "waking her nicely", and between couples who've already established a sexual relationship, doesn't normally involve stopping to ask explicit permission.
If consent was withdrawn when she woke, then Assange should have done the same, but that's not what's being said in the accusations.
I support every woman's right to say "no" to sex at any time, and in normal circumstances I'd side with the Swedish girls involved. In this instance, the stories seem to be very carefully crafted to skirt the divide between outright prosecutable acts and legally consented sex. Crafted well enough in fact, to justify prosecution, while avoiding accusations of perjury.
I could be wrong, but that suggests to me that the women making the accusations might have been primed by legally-experienced third parties.
Wow, this post went from "+4 Insightful" to "0 Troll" in the time it took me to get a glass of milk -- WTFLOL?!
"Army of fake social media friends to promote propaganda
It's recently been revealed that the U.S. government contracted HBGary Federal for the development of software which could create multiple fake social media profiles to manipulate and sway public opinion on controversial issues by promoting propaganda. It could also be used as surveillance to find public opinions with points of view the powers-that-be didn't like. It could then potentially have their "fake" people run smear campaigns against those "real" people."
http://blogs.computerworld.com/17852/army_of_fake_social_media_friends_to_promote_propaganda
Run all the existing Android apps, but get the nice modern multitasking capable UI of Luna's card based interface, and get the ability to develop easily HTML5+Javascript apps thanks to Luna and Enyo frameworks.
This is actually where all OSs should be heading. RIM's Playbook already has Android app compatibility, and since the Davlik VM is both open source and has been through the legal and patent mill, there shouldn't be any impediment to adding it to any other OS.
It'd be fascinating to see the results when operating systems have to compete on merit instead of lockin, wouldn't it?
True, or vote for Kodos.
Leaves disappointed.
What about the twigs and branches. How are they feeling?
I'm really tire of tweedle dee vs tweedle dum choices for presidential elections.
You're lucky.
Over in Australia, our elections are normally between Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dumber.
What was so "innovative" about the shape of the corners on the iPad that it needs this much legal protection?
Nothing, but patent trolling is one of the fastest growth industries in the US. In addition, it prevents newer, more agile companies disrupting established revenue streams with novel products. It's no surprise companies like Apple are joining in.
Patent trolls curb innovation and cost the U.S. $29B in 2011
A new study shows that patent lawsuits are not only costing the country billions of dollars but are also placing the burden on small and medium-size companies, which slows invention.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57461110-93/patent-trolls-curb-innovation-and-cost-the-u.s-$29b-in-2011/
Suspension of disbelief is an essential ingredient for any kind of storytelling. With any film or TV series, the viewer has to ignore the reality that they are viewing a two-dimensional moving image on a screen and temporarily accept it as reality in order to be entertained.
Watching or even skipping adverts breaks that suspension and drags viewers out of the diegesis on screen. For a lot of TV that's not important, and I wouldn't care, but for a show I want to be absorbed in, it's a deal breaker.
Yep, I use that too. (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.stericson.permissions)
Actually, Android has most of what Eben asks for, but managing it (even with apps like Permissions Denied LBE Privacy Guard or PDroid) is complicated and requires understanding of the risks.
"A central design point of the Android security architecture is that no application, by default, has permission to perform any operations that would adversely impact other applications, the operating system, or the user. This includes reading or writing the user's private data (such as contacts or e-mails), reading or writing another application's files, performing network access, keeping the device awake, etc."
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/security/permissions.html
If you need an excuse to buy another gadget, check out this...
Second screen applications involve interactivity between smart phones, tablets, or other devices and TV. A second screen application could be a controller for a Google TV application or it could add more functionality to a Google TV application. For example, the YouTube Remote application enables users to browse videos on their smart phone and play them on Google TV
https://developers.google.com/tv/remote/
more a matter of "no regulation". just a medium with a defined peak and no consequences in hardware for driving the average too high.
There have been consequences in software though.
MythTV has been using the difference in loudness/dynamic range to identify and skip commercials. I hope these measures don't compromise that, I'd hate to have to start watching adverts again...
I use BlueTerm for my Arduino stuff. There's a few other terminal emulators around.
I'm in Australia, and we didn't even get a connection into US ARPAnet until the early 1990s,
There were a few connections around, though mostly through business or university mainframes. I remember messaging and playing Empire or Star Trek with one of those green fanfold keyboard consoles in the early '80s, then getting a bit more serious and using the WMC VAX system in the late '80s to explore. From memory, there was an X25 PAD over in Queensland that could hop over to the US.
I know companies that don't aim at maximizing profits can be sued by their shareholders
Not true. And even if you WERE trying to maximise value to shareholders, there's a distinction between long-term sustainability and short term profit.
The Myth of Profit Maximizing
“It is literally – literally – malfeasance for a corporation not to do everything it legally can to maximize its profits. That’s a corporation’s duty to its shareholders.”
Since this sentiment is so familiar, it may come as a surprise that it is factually incorrect: In reality, there is nothing in any U.S. statute, federal or state, that requires corporations to maximize their profits. More surprising still is that, in this instance, the untruth was not uttered as propaganda by a corporate lobbyist but presented as a fact of life by one of the leading lights of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing, Sen. Al Franken.
http://www.alternet.org/economy/154789/whose_corporations_our_corporations!?page=entire