Unless you are a Native Indian from North America... You are a damm foreigner yourself, ok!
Huh? That makes very little sense... yes, everyone in America (except Native Americans) is descended from immigrants, but as a native-born American citizen I am not a foreigner. Oh, I gather you're trying to be funny, but in reality that attitude (that everyone's a "foreigner" so it doesn't matter who comes into our country, and that citizenship is just a piece of paper) is causing a lot of problems for the U.S. and other countries at the moment. France, for example. The human race really is not ready for a borderless "One World, One Government" scenario, and won't be for a long time. If ever. So for the time being, yes, we do need borders and the distinction between "legal resident" and "foreigner" is still necessary. And, sometimes, it's important to put teeth behind it.
And before any of you start decrying the United States' immigration policies as racist, simply because there are people that we don't allow into our country, remember that every nation on the planet reserves the right to determine if you're a citizen, a legal resident... or not. If if you are in the "not" category, well, what happens to you then depends upon what country you're squatting in. I wouldn't want to try what our Mexican friends are doing to us with, say, Russia or China. Odds are you'd end up in prison or just shot out of hand. We're pretty decent about it here in the U.S.: we just ship you back on an air-conditioned bus.
TI isn't trying to stop the hack. They're trying to stop the publishing of the instructions of how to do the hack. Different discussion.
Which is, in effect, exactly the same thing. They're attempting to suppress legal (and probably Constitutionally-protected) expression. Not smart, nor is it ethical.
TI seems to have a perfectly valid case here. This seems like a clear breach of the DMCA. The law itself is completely unacceptable, but don't blame the company for a bad law, blame the legislators.
Even if you were correct (and, well, you're not) one can still question the ethics of a company for permitting its attorneys to intimidate others using said bad law. You seem to think that just because a law is on the books that that any use (or misuse) of that law is acceptable. It isn't, and TI's upper management should know that. And if it so happens that they're arrogant and stupid, their legal staff should have so informed them.
That's true to some degree. But computers do slow down as they age. Components damaged by the constant heating cause more errors and therefore require retransmission or error correction, slowing things down.
No, not really. PCs are nowhere near that sophisticated. A high-speed CPU bus is not like a DSL connection. Pretty much it has to work near-perfectly, or it's blue-screen city.
For example, I have a couple of Athlon 1.4 ghz machines that are running just as fast as the day I built them, and they've never been turned off. Also have an old Thinkpad R41... still as fast as it ever was (faster, actually... I have it running a stripped-down version of XP.) If you have a motherboard or PC that is getting errors due to heating what you're going to see are crashes and lockups, not slowdowns. Personal computers are not mainframes or minicomputers: even with ECC memory they are not fault tolerant to any significant degree, and frankly I think it's a wonder they work as well as they do (Windows issues aside.) When a component starts generating errors your average PC just breaks... if you're lucky it's just the faulty subsystem, but if you're not the machine is toast.
People's machines slow down because a. they never defrag their hard drives and b. they get infected. It just takes a single badly written piece of malware to turn an otherwise decent machine into a 386, yet users frequently blame the hardware for being too old, as if that somehow explains poor performance. Many people are completely amazed when I clean up their system for them and pack the hard disk. "Wow, it's like a whole new computer!" No, dimbulb, it's the same computer you've always had, you were just too lazy to give it even minimum maintenance. I'm glad I'm not in IT: it's a lot like being a doctor. You have to deal with people who have no ability to think rationally about their problems, and even when you give them good advice they never follow it anyway.
So far on the list: finding the right strain of algae among thousands of species that will produce high yields; designing systems where the desired algae can multiply and other species don't invade and disrupt the process; and extracting its oils without degrading other parts of the algae that can be made into side products and sold as well.
Sounds like someone ought to be talking to Big Pharma. They've been doing this sort of thing for decades. Not with algae, necessarily, but with many species of bacteria that are used to synthesize drugs. I'd think that some of that technology could be transferable (probably have to pay license fees, though.) Hell, for that matter the average brewery is able to reliably grow the desired species of yeast to produce beer.
I'd say so.:) Not sure why I was modded flamebait.
Me neither, considering that it's probably true. The metamods may fix that though.
So far as the rest of your comment... well, now you know why I refuse to watch mainstream news. I know they're lying to me, but I can't always tell when they're lying to me. I don't like that: I'd rather remain ignorant of a topic than be completely misinformed about it. Consequently I get my news from other sources, such as the BBC. They have more accurate reporting of the American political scene that any of our own major news outlets, so that's where I go, among other places. Sad that our much-vaunted free press has fallen down on the job, but there it is.
AC, you missed the point, which was that an IP address simply is not sufficient information to uniquely identify an individual infringer. Consequently, because it does NOT MEET EVIDENTIARY standards, any lawsuit which is based solely upon that information is, by definition, frivolous. The fact that the majority of courts in this country have been hoodwinked by the RIAA's criminal attorneys and their illegal Mediasentry "investigative" arm does not change the fact that the technology does not work the way they say it does.
Furthermore, if the RIAA actually spent the money to perform solid investigations of alleged infringement and only sued the people that were actually infringing nobody would be complaining about their activities. But that's not what they want: this is not about redress.
The reality is that the RIAA has engaged in a campaign of fear-mongering, deliberately terrorizing and harassing families in spite of a complete lack of credible evidence, attempting to make file-sharing seem incredibly dangerous because you might have your life destroyed even if you are innocent. That's a hideous misuse of the legal system, and one that absolutely should not be sanctioned by the courts... period!
So don't try feeding us a line about how the poor artists are being soooo abused by file sharing. It's the studios themselves that have been shafting artists for a century or more, long before the Internet came into being. They've also been overcharging consumers for about as long: even the Feds have been investigating them for that. All file sharing has done is take them down a notch: they still record profit levels that virtually any other business would envy, because plenty of people still pay them for their products.
The entirety of his business model, it seems, is to come up with something and go on about how big a deal it is, until it actually becomes a semi-big deal.
It's called "The Big Lie". Repeat something often enough, and eventually it becomes the truth. For example, we've been told repeatedly for almost forty years how we put men on the Moon, and now everybody is convinced it really happened. Oh sure, there are the conspiracy nuts that think we actually went to the Moon and back, and that the government is trying to cover up all those successful Apollo missions, but nobody takes them seriously.
In fact most P2P systems offer as the only point of identification the IP Address, which does not immediately translate into a personal identification
Apparently you've not been following the RIAA lawsuit mill. According to them (and the majority of courts which have bought into it) an IP address is unquestionable proof of identity. The fact that it's not doesn't matter if you've been screwed into the ground by a frivolous lawsuit.
Riight. 1. If I was one of Murdoch's techs I'd be keeping particularly quiet about how stupid he sounds.. and 2. I expect Murdoch wouldn't even consider the possibility that other people see things differently to him, let alone that he might be wrong about something, or not understand it fully.
In which case, as I said... silly comments about Google stealing news are to be expected. He's either an idiot in this matter, or crazy like a fox. Personally, I think he knows exactly what's going on with spidering, but doesn't care so long as he gets his way. And that means getting Google out of the business of reporting news, or paying Newscorp for the privilege.
it's pretty straight forward. google sells ads and so does rupert, they are in direct compeition for the same dollars.
To a degree... however, the means by which they gain those dollars are very, very different. Google, in effect, gives it away in order to encourage people to view ads. That's because they have something else we want: good search and a rapidly expanding portfolio of Web services, and advertisers pay Google handsomely because of that. Murdoch, on the other hand, wants people to pay to view his ads, in addition to the money he receives from advertisers.
So, you see, it's not a simple matter of competition: if it were, why isn't Murdoch complaining about all the other conventional news organizations (AP, Reuters, Fox News, etc.) who operate along the same lines he does? Why? Because they're in the same boat he is, that's why, and the less-forward-thinking members of that community think just like he does. Interestingly, Murdoch is also making a big stink about the BBC, claiming that the BBC's providing quality reporting "for free" is somehow bad for the BBC's viewers. In other words, if you don't pay him for your news, it's bad for you. The arrogance of the man is truly remarkable.
Well, in the BBC's case, what they offer is hardly free: the citizens of that nation pay for the service by paying their television tax. Murdoch is just pissed that he's not getting a cut... which is the same complaint he's registering against Google, and it's just as bogus in either case.
True, and that's why I referred to "his tech people". Presumably he has advisors to help him understand the rudiments of what his Web operations are doing (at least, those parts that are relevant to his corporate strategizing), and I further assume that he's smart enough to consult them. If he's not, then silly comments about Google "stealing" content are to be expected from him. If he is, then he's dissembling for some other reason.
Not only that, but the one on foxnews.com provides Google sitemaps.
That's too bad. Google's spider really has better things to do than index Fox News... for example, my great aunt Betty's second cousin's daughter's wedding photos.
You're falling into the trap of thinking that success in high places must mean competence. The world isn't nearly that sane.
I agree, but I only meant "hardly stupid" to indicate that he's capable of understanding what "Disallow" means. Still, the term "competent" has many meanings. Murdoch has proven himself highly competent at acquiring wealth, power and influence, regardless of his intellectual attainments, if any.
if he really wants Google to stop driving all those readers to his Web sites at no charge, he can simply stop Google from linking to their news stories by going to his Web site's robot.txt file and adding 'Disallow.
Murdoch may be a complete asshole but he's hardly stupid: I'm sure his tech people explained to him that Google respects the Robot Exclusion Protocol. All the big boys do... not to do so would be a. sleazy and b. stupid, since there are plenty of litigious fucks like Murdoch out there. The fact that he's making such misinformed claims in apparent ignorance indicates that he has another agenda, one of which we currently know nothing. Ultimately though, I think it comes down to an outfit like Google, with the stated goal of indexing all the world's knowledge, coming into direct conflict with those who wish to restrict access to knowledge for profit. What makes matters worse for the likes of Murdoch is that Google makes its money from other sources, and is not responsive to the same motivations and perceived threats as the incumbent news organizations. If Newscorp and every other such "service" were to disappear tomorrow, it would make little difference to Google's bottom line.
I know Google's not the only company doing this, I just don't understand why so many people cheer for an advertising company.
I agree with you, but put it this way: rather than just taking what isn't theirs (your personal information) they are trading you access to some really cool services in exchange for it. That's a lot more than anyone else is doing... most data aggregators just take and don't give you anything for the privilege. And Android allows you to leave your GPS running but NOT tell Google where you are, and being an open-source OS it's not hard for people to guarantee that's the case. Of course, if you do that then a lot of Google's advanced services don't work as well, and obviously Google is betting that most people will want those services more than they want their location kept private. In that I suspect they're correct: most people won't care, but if you're, say, cheating on your wife you might want to turn that feature off.
It's a trade-off, to be sure, but at least Google is allowing the end-user to make that decision. I'm not sure that Apple or anyone else would be so reasonable about it.
Wrong on that point, hardware supports it and so does the OS now. Besides, a key point here is that Android is open-source (yes, a bunch of Google's apps are proprietary, witness the recent Cyanogenmod debacle) and a bunch of third-parties are taking it well beyond what Google is doing. Apple's BSD-based iPhone will only advance at the pace that Apple sets: Android is not so limited. I'm running Cyanogenmod 4.1.999 on my G1 now, and it supports multitouch in the browser and has a number of other features not in the stock ROMs. More importantly, Google is not concerned about such third-party products, and indeed encourages and supports them so long as they don't include Google's proprietary bits. I can't see Apple taking that attitude, ever.
The G1 sports a magnetic compass and field-strength sensor, the iPhone has a proximity sensor. Both have an ARM-derivative CPU at 500+ Mhz. Regardless, the two are on pretty equal footing hardware-wise, and frankly I prefer my slideout keyboard to Apple's on-screen keyboard (personal preference though, can't really ding Apple for that, many prefer the OSK.) And that's just the G1... more and more Android devices are coming out, and the hardware specs are generally improving so Apple's lead there is already dissipating.
Fact is, Apple's lead in the media player and smartphone market is based upon initial technical superiority coupled with an excellent hype machine. There will always be rabid Apple fanboys so long as there is an Apple Computer, however that does not mean that their products will always be the "best", when critiqued dispassionately and without the hype. Other companies have seen the light (certainly we can thank Apple for that) and are investing significant capital in their own offerings.
I wonder what app is available for the iPhone that is not available for Android?
Oh, a lot of stuff exists for the iPhone that doesn't exist for Android yet... the iPhone has been out for a lot longer and consequently has more developer support. That's changing though: more and more stuff is appearing in the Android Market every day. There are also a couple of non-Google markets (like SlideMe) although they don't have much in them yet: mostly seems to be apps that aren't allowed for a particular carrier (like tethering on T-Mobile.) At least Android doesn't have an issue with installing non-Market apps: Apple's approach there completely turns me off. I wouldn't take that kind of crap from a personal computer OS vendor, and I fail to see why I should accept it just because my PC happens to be in my pocket. Apple lost me right from the start on that point alone.
Given the momentum behind Android (and the fact that it is appearing on devices other than smartphones) I expect the number and quality of applications to continue to grow. Seems like a number of iPhone developers are porting their apps to Android as well.
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yes, everyone in America (except Native Americans)
And that really isn't true either ... I don't think they evolved here. They just got here first.
Get one thing straight....
Unless you are a Native Indian from North America... You are a damm foreigner yourself, ok!
Huh? That makes very little sense ... yes, everyone in America (except Native Americans) is descended from immigrants, but as a native-born American citizen I am not a foreigner. Oh, I gather you're trying to be funny, but in reality that attitude (that everyone's a "foreigner" so it doesn't matter who comes into our country, and that citizenship is just a piece of paper) is causing a lot of problems for the U.S. and other countries at the moment. France, for example. The human race really is not ready for a borderless "One World, One Government" scenario, and won't be for a long time. If ever. So for the time being, yes, we do need borders and the distinction between "legal resident" and "foreigner" is still necessary. And, sometimes, it's important to put teeth behind it.
... or not. If if you are in the "not" category, well, what happens to you then depends upon what country you're squatting in. I wouldn't want to try what our Mexican friends are doing to us with, say, Russia or China. Odds are you'd end up in prison or just shot out of hand. We're pretty decent about it here in the U.S.: we just ship you back on an air-conditioned bus.
And before any of you start decrying the United States' immigration policies as racist, simply because there are people that we don't allow into our country, remember that every nation on the planet reserves the right to determine if you're a citizen, a legal resident
It's possible to admire someone's courage and dedication, but be disgusted by their cause and actions.
fanatic ... whether they're loaded or not.
–noun
1. a person who sticks to his guns
TI isn't trying to stop the hack. They're trying to stop the publishing of the instructions of how to do the hack. Different discussion.
Which is, in effect, exactly the same thing. They're attempting to suppress legal (and probably Constitutionally-protected) expression. Not smart, nor is it ethical.
TI seems to have a perfectly valid case here. This seems like a clear breach of the DMCA. The law itself is completely unacceptable, but don't blame the company for a bad law, blame the legislators.
Even if you were correct (and, well, you're not) one can still question the ethics of a company for permitting its attorneys to intimidate others using said bad law. You seem to think that just because a law is on the books that that any use (or misuse) of that law is acceptable. It isn't, and TI's upper management should know that. And if it so happens that they're arrogant and stupid, their legal staff should have so informed them.
That's true to some degree. But computers do slow down as they age. Components damaged by the constant heating cause more errors and therefore require retransmission or error correction, slowing things down.
No, not really. PCs are nowhere near that sophisticated. A high-speed CPU bus is not like a DSL connection. Pretty much it has to work near-perfectly, or it's blue-screen city.
... still as fast as it ever was (faster, actually ... I have it running a stripped-down version of XP.) If you have a motherboard or PC that is getting errors due to heating what you're going to see are crashes and lockups, not slowdowns. Personal computers are not mainframes or minicomputers: even with ECC memory they are not fault tolerant to any significant degree, and frankly I think it's a wonder they work as well as they do (Windows issues aside.) When a component starts generating errors your average PC just breaks ... if you're lucky it's just the faulty subsystem, but if you're not the machine is toast.
For example, I have a couple of Athlon 1.4 ghz machines that are running just as fast as the day I built them, and they've never been turned off. Also have an old Thinkpad R41
People's machines slow down because a. they never defrag their hard drives and b. they get infected. It just takes a single badly written piece of malware to turn an otherwise decent machine into a 386, yet users frequently blame the hardware for being too old, as if that somehow explains poor performance. Many people are completely amazed when I clean up their system for them and pack the hard disk. "Wow, it's like a whole new computer!" No, dimbulb, it's the same computer you've always had, you were just too lazy to give it even minimum maintenance. I'm glad I'm not in IT: it's a lot like being a doctor. You have to deal with people who have no ability to think rationally about their problems, and even when you give them good advice they never follow it anyway.
So far on the list: finding the right strain of algae among thousands of species that will produce high yields; designing systems where the desired algae can multiply and other species don't invade and disrupt the process; and extracting its oils without degrading other parts of the algae that can be made into side products and sold as well.
Sounds like someone ought to be talking to Big Pharma. They've been doing this sort of thing for decades. Not with algae, necessarily, but with many species of bacteria that are used to synthesize drugs. I'd think that some of that technology could be transferable (probably have to pay license fees, though.) Hell, for that matter the average brewery is able to reliably grow the desired species of yeast to produce beer.
I'd say so. :) Not sure why I was modded flamebait.
Me neither, considering that it's probably true. The metamods may fix that though.
... well, now you know why I refuse to watch mainstream news. I know they're lying to me, but I can't always tell when they're lying to me. I don't like that: I'd rather remain ignorant of a topic than be completely misinformed about it. Consequently I get my news from other sources, such as the BBC. They have more accurate reporting of the American political scene that any of our own major news outlets, so that's where I go, among other places. Sad that our much-vaunted free press has fallen down on the job, but there it is.
So far as the rest of your comment
AC, you missed the point, which was that an IP address simply is not sufficient information to uniquely identify an individual infringer. Consequently, because it does NOT MEET EVIDENTIARY standards, any lawsuit which is based solely upon that information is, by definition, frivolous. The fact that the majority of courts in this country have been hoodwinked by the RIAA's criminal attorneys and their illegal Mediasentry "investigative" arm does not change the fact that the technology does not work the way they say it does.
... period!
Furthermore, if the RIAA actually spent the money to perform solid investigations of alleged infringement and only sued the people that were actually infringing nobody would be complaining about their activities. But that's not what they want: this is not about redress.
The reality is that the RIAA has engaged in a campaign of fear-mongering, deliberately terrorizing and harassing families in spite of a complete lack of credible evidence, attempting to make file-sharing seem incredibly dangerous because you might have your life destroyed even if you are innocent. That's a hideous misuse of the legal system, and one that absolutely should not be sanctioned by the courts
So don't try feeding us a line about how the poor artists are being soooo abused by file sharing. It's the studios themselves that have been shafting artists for a century or more, long before the Internet came into being. They've also been overcharging consumers for about as long: even the Feds have been investigating them for that. All file sharing has done is take them down a notch: they still record profit levels that virtually any other business would envy, because plenty of people still pay them for their products.
So get the hell off your high horse.
Maybe I misunderstood...
But did you just refer to the contents of foxnews.com as knowledge?
A typo, sorry.
Troll? Dudes ... that was a JOKE. Cripes, wake up mods.
The entirety of his business model, it seems, is to come up with something and go on about how big a deal it is, until it actually becomes a semi-big deal.
It's called "The Big Lie". Repeat something often enough, and eventually it becomes the truth. For example, we've been told repeatedly for almost forty years how we put men on the Moon, and now everybody is convinced it really happened. Oh sure, there are the conspiracy nuts that think we actually went to the Moon and back, and that the government is trying to cover up all those successful Apollo missions, but nobody takes them seriously.
In fact most P2P systems offer as the only point of identification the IP Address, which does not immediately translate into a personal identification
Apparently you've not been following the RIAA lawsuit mill. According to them (and the majority of courts which have bought into it) an IP address is unquestionable proof of identity. The fact that it's not doesn't matter if you've been screwed into the ground by a frivolous lawsuit.
I'd venture to say he's trying to create a groundswell of idiots
And for sure there's a metric fuckton of those lying around.
Riight. 1. If I was one of Murdoch's techs I'd be keeping particularly quiet about how stupid he sounds.. and 2. I expect Murdoch wouldn't even consider the possibility that other people see things differently to him, let alone that he might be wrong about something, or not understand it fully.
In which case, as I said ... silly comments about Google stealing news are to be expected. He's either an idiot in this matter, or crazy like a fox. Personally, I think he knows exactly what's going on with spidering, but doesn't care so long as he gets his way. And that means getting Google out of the business of reporting news, or paying Newscorp for the privilege.
it's pretty straight forward. google sells ads and so does rupert, they are in direct compeition for the same dollars.
To a degree ... however, the means by which they gain those dollars are very, very different. Google, in effect, gives it away in order to encourage people to view ads. That's because they have something else we want: good search and a rapidly expanding portfolio of Web services, and advertisers pay Google handsomely because of that. Murdoch, on the other hand, wants people to pay to view his ads, in addition to the money he receives from advertisers.
... which is the same complaint he's registering against Google, and it's just as bogus in either case.
So, you see, it's not a simple matter of competition: if it were, why isn't Murdoch complaining about all the other conventional news organizations (AP, Reuters, Fox News, etc.) who operate along the same lines he does? Why? Because they're in the same boat he is, that's why, and the less-forward-thinking members of that community think just like he does. Interestingly, Murdoch is also making a big stink about the BBC, claiming that the BBC's providing quality reporting "for free" is somehow bad for the BBC's viewers. In other words, if you don't pay him for your news, it's bad for you. The arrogance of the man is truly remarkable.
Well, in the BBC's case, what they offer is hardly free: the citizens of that nation pay for the service by paying their television tax. Murdoch is just pissed that he's not getting a cut
Perhaps I have a higher definition of "computer literate", but it doesn't include people who think the internet is magic...
Only the IBM-supplied parts are, I understand. Those using IBM's soy-based magic Pixie dust that they advertised a few years ago.
No.. and neither does Murdoch.
True, and that's why I referred to "his tech people". Presumably he has advisors to help him understand the rudiments of what his Web operations are doing (at least, those parts that are relevant to his corporate strategizing), and I further assume that he's smart enough to consult them. If he's not, then silly comments about Google "stealing" content are to be expected from him. If he is, then he's dissembling for some other reason.
He would prefer if Google keeps indexing his news, but he just wants to wriggle a little extra money out of it.
Ha ... it would take an act of Congress to make that happen. Not that I'd put that past him.
Not only that, but the one on foxnews.com provides Google sitemaps.
That's too bad. Google's spider really has better things to do than index Fox News ... for example, my great aunt Betty's second cousin's daughter's wedding photos.
You're falling into the trap of thinking that success in high places must mean competence. The world isn't nearly that sane.
I agree, but I only meant "hardly stupid" to indicate that he's capable of understanding what "Disallow" means. Still, the term "competent" has many meanings. Murdoch has proven himself highly competent at acquiring wealth, power and influence, regardless of his intellectual attainments, if any.
if he really wants Google to stop driving all those readers to his Web sites at no charge, he can simply stop Google from linking to their news stories by going to his Web site's robot.txt file and adding 'Disallow.
Murdoch may be a complete asshole but he's hardly stupid: I'm sure his tech people explained to him that Google respects the Robot Exclusion Protocol. All the big boys do ... not to do so would be a. sleazy and b. stupid, since there are plenty of litigious fucks like Murdoch out there. The fact that he's making such misinformed claims in apparent ignorance indicates that he has another agenda, one of which we currently know nothing. Ultimately though, I think it comes down to an outfit like Google, with the stated goal of indexing all the world's knowledge, coming into direct conflict with those who wish to restrict access to knowledge for profit. What makes matters worse for the likes of Murdoch is that Google makes its money from other sources, and is not responsive to the same motivations and perceived threats as the incumbent news organizations. If Newscorp and every other such "service" were to disappear tomorrow, it would make little difference to Google's bottom line.
I know Google's not the only company doing this, I just don't understand why so many people cheer for an advertising company.
I agree with you, but put it this way: rather than just taking what isn't theirs (your personal information) they are trading you access to some really cool services in exchange for it. That's a lot more than anyone else is doing ... most data aggregators just take and don't give you anything for the privilege. And Android allows you to leave your GPS running but NOT tell Google where you are, and being an open-source OS it's not hard for people to guarantee that's the case. Of course, if you do that then a lot of Google's advanced services don't work as well, and obviously Google is betting that most people will want those services more than they want their location kept private. In that I suspect they're correct: most people won't care, but if you're, say, cheating on your wife you might want to turn that feature off.
It's a trade-off, to be sure, but at least Google is allowing the end-user to make that decision. I'm not sure that Apple or anyone else would be so reasonable about it.
Touch but not multitouch.
Wrong on that point, hardware supports it and so does the OS now. Besides, a key point here is that Android is open-source (yes, a bunch of Google's apps are proprietary, witness the recent Cyanogenmod debacle) and a bunch of third-parties are taking it well beyond what Google is doing. Apple's BSD-based iPhone will only advance at the pace that Apple sets: Android is not so limited. I'm running Cyanogenmod 4.1.999 on my G1 now, and it supports multitouch in the browser and has a number of other features not in the stock ROMs. More importantly, Google is not concerned about such third-party products, and indeed encourages and supports them so long as they don't include Google's proprietary bits. I can't see Apple taking that attitude, ever.
... more and more Android devices are coming out, and the hardware specs are generally improving so Apple's lead there is already dissipating.
The G1 sports a magnetic compass and field-strength sensor, the iPhone has a proximity sensor. Both have an ARM-derivative CPU at 500+ Mhz. Regardless, the two are on pretty equal footing hardware-wise, and frankly I prefer my slideout keyboard to Apple's on-screen keyboard (personal preference though, can't really ding Apple for that, many prefer the OSK.) And that's just the G1
Fact is, Apple's lead in the media player and smartphone market is based upon initial technical superiority coupled with an excellent hype machine. There will always be rabid Apple fanboys so long as there is an Apple Computer, however that does not mean that their products will always be the "best", when critiqued dispassionately and without the hype. Other companies have seen the light (certainly we can thank Apple for that) and are investing significant capital in their own offerings.
I wonder what app is available for the iPhone that is not available for Android?
Oh, a lot of stuff exists for the iPhone that doesn't exist for Android yet ... the iPhone has been out for a lot longer and consequently has more developer support. That's changing though: more and more stuff is appearing in the Android Market every day. There are also a couple of non-Google markets (like SlideMe) although they don't have much in them yet: mostly seems to be apps that aren't allowed for a particular carrier (like tethering on T-Mobile.) At least Android doesn't have an issue with installing non-Market apps: Apple's approach there completely turns me off. I wouldn't take that kind of crap from a personal computer OS vendor, and I fail to see why I should accept it just because my PC happens to be in my pocket. Apple lost me right from the start on that point alone.
Given the momentum behind Android (and the fact that it is appearing on devices other than smartphones) I expect the number and quality of applications to continue to grow. Seems like a number of iPhone developers are porting their apps to Android as well.
We would all be annoyed of course, but isn't that the ultimate goal of the "fairness" crowd?
Historically, most attempts by government (any government) to promote "fairness" almost always result in increased inequity.