A dodgy, enormously blatant iPad knockoff selling out of Hong Kong only with no bluetooth, only 4GB storage by default (with a maximum amount bringing it up to the lowest iPad storage amount), and an advertised 3 hour battery life (seriously, 3 hours!).
Not junk at all. No sir.
If you were posting this sarcastically as evidence of non-junk cheap tablets then I think you have just demonstrated why the iPad is selling well. If it was just to show an example of what we're talking about, I think you found an ideal one.
They received $56.8 million from google alone in 2006 as part of the search box revenue. That is more than $6.5 million dollars. I know it's not profit, and they have running costs and salaries etc to pay, but they could make room for the capped H.264 licence.
I think it's telling on the price point. Everyone assumes that Apple has just slapped a massive profit margin on the iPad and released it (even though it was released a few hundred cheaper than most estimates originally, they just revised downwards), but I think people are starting to realise that the components really are that expensive right now and that it's very, very difficult to undershoot the price of the iPad while keeping the hardware decent (it is a benefit to Apple that they have economies of scale already working to their advantage).
Inevitably the prices will fall on all sides, but the cavalier attitude that Android would "have it in the bag" because there would be a flurry of tablets of the same quality as the iPad but much cheaper has gone, because they are just not appearing yet - they're all equivalent in price or higher (or are just considerably sub-par in the hardware department).
Apple really hit the market perfectly with the iPad. They walked in and cleaned up, establishing a solid presence that continues to grow and no one has been able to match them yet. It won't be that way forever, but right now the iPad really is king, at a price point few are able to match.
Unless you have an enterprise licence, when you can do anything you like.
On the consumer side, it's more accurate to describe it as a gated community - in general no one really cares what you do inside there, unless you start making waves. The number of "high profile" "banned" apps is very small compared to the whole ecosystem. For the vast majority of developers and users they are simply not affected by it at all and are doing just fine within the walls.
It's not for everyone of course, and I think Android was an inevitable result of the iOS ecosystem, and they will certainly make each other better. Everyone wins.
The worst possible thing you can do is underestimate or belittle the competition as you have done in your flamebait post. The iOS ecosystem has some well-documented controls, but the sort of hyperbole demonstrated here really oversells it and just puts you out of touch with exactly what it is like, which leads to complacency. How many people on here, for example, still harp on about how iOS is not ready for enterprise because of the "good luck getting your secret/NDA covered app through the app store lolz!" without realising that there's a whole separate in-house deployment system for iOS in enterprise. I saw it a lot in the NFL article about iPads replacing paper for coaches, for instance. It's comments like yours that fosters this sort of ignorance. You don;t actually stop to look at exactly what it is you're rallying against. It really is just "oh, it's made by Apple/Microsoft/Sony/OtherBigBusiness, therefore I don't actually need to do any research on it, I just know it's bad and will now spout off opinion as if it were fact". It's tiresome.
Where do we go from here if you are doubting my story. I would show you photographs of the disassembles I have done for the people who were curious about what their machines looked like inside, but that feels a little bit like a petty high school "he said, she said" argument.
I have done Dells too - most recently I walked a close friend through taking apart an Inspiron 1501 so she could clean the fan and heatsink radiator. I don't think that one counts to my total though, since I did it over the phone while I was sat in a field and never actually saw the laptop. Maybe she was just tricking me and not actually taking anything apart and just wasting my time.
Like I mentioned either in this thread or another one lower down, the hardest one to do was the 12" PB G4 due to the way it was intricately layered. I had to replace the optical drive, which as you know means pretty much taking it down to the case (you even have to take out the logic board), but even this was not "difficult" in the sense of being too hard to do, you just need to take your time and watch for connectors and areas where things overlap. The service manuals are well illustrated with photos and screw points, so as long as you start with a sheet of A4 and rule out some squares to mark out steps you can create checkpoints for yourself to go backwards when assembling.
A couple of credit cards make short work of getting the case open, although I actually found that my RAC membership card worked slightly better - it's slightly thinner and more flexible than a credit card. It also works a treat to pop the recessed latches on a white iMac.
Some are easier than others - there are Macbooks where changing the HD is a case of opening the access door in battery bay, or as in the old Tibook the HD is accessible by just taking the bottom case off.
Replacing the wireless card in an iBook is a case of "just taking off the keyboard" - the designs are varied and some things are easier than others.
However, since you don't believe I've ever actually taken a laptop apart, all I can say is "fair enough, I suppose I can't really argue with you", making this post pointless.
Just for the record though, off the top of my head: * HD in a 600Mhz G3 iBook * HD in 17" G4 PB * HD in 12" PB (1Ghz) * Optical drive in same 12" PB 12 months later (user broke off a CD inside drive and ruined it) * HD in a different 12" PB G4 * Inverter board in that 12" PB about 2 years later (even taking the display apart is not that tricky, also repaired the spot welded screw housings on this repair since they are pretty weak and had separated from the cover) * Fan in Inspiron 1501 (then later talked user through strip down and cleaning procedure from a field in Nottinghamshire) * removal of a 2p piece from a Dell Inspiron. * HD in Fujitsu... hmmm something or other * HD in original Macbook * HD in numerous Dell/HP laptops * plenty of others I can't remember, including
From this list we can see that HDs seem to go a lot! Although abut half of them are merely upgrades rather than HD failures.
But no, as you say, perhaps I just dreamed it all.
To promote a web built on open standards and to offer an alternative to MS, Google and Apple? You know, like it is now.
H.264 has won the battle already. It is not going away. It's the mp3 of the current video era (patented and requires royalties). Right now the battle needs to be getting HTML5 into prime position, and getting rid of Flash. After that, work on the video codec because right now no one is going anywhere other than H.264.
Mozilla can still give FF away for Free, and can offer a fully open version without the H.264 module, or just have the module as a separate install for Linux users.
Nothing is totally black and white - sometimes you have to compromise to make it in the world, and there is a history of that on Linux that does make it better. Closed source video drivers for example - I know some people think they are abhorrent, but they have allowed me to get into Ubuntu and make an old machine usable. One more Linux user in the fold! All thanks tot non-Free software. But hey, what's the point of that eh?
* Mozilla can't license those patents and keep firefox free.
Yes they can.
They have the money to pay for the licences (it's a capped value and they can afford the highest amount), and they can roll a closed package that can be linked against the GPL part of Firefox using the MPL. They can release two versions, one with and one without H.264 if they really want. Or they can build in the ability to hand off the H.264 stream to the underlying OS without breaking any laws or having to pay any licence fees.
* Mozilla can't leave it to the OS, because doing so will alienate part of their users (linux users who are not violating the patents)
Right, and what about those users who used to be regular FF users who have moved away from it because it doesn't support the most common video format? Whichever way they go they are going to alienate some users. I guess they have to decide whether desktop Linux (where they can easily roll an H.264-free version since the module would be a separate piece) is a big enough install base to worry about. (In my opinion, yes, but then I don't make the decisions). Either way, there's nothing stopping them having a separate installer pack for H.264 that bolts onto an "untainted" FF install.
Also, if Mozilla has paid for the licences, there's no legal barrier to H.264 on Linux.
Like I said at the very beginning - I can see *why* they don't want to pay the MPEG LA for H.264 licences, but there's no legal reason that they cannot put in H.264 as long as they do pay. I agree that the web should be fully open, but I am also a realist - H.264 is not going away until something better comes along. And in the current situation "royalty free" is *not enough* to enough people to make WebM better than H.264, even if we assume they are technically equivalent.
right - when the patents expires, Firefox might be able to include it. Is that what you meant?)
Here you imply that it is a patent issue that is causing the issue, when in reality it is a licensing and royalty issue, but so many people on slashdot confuse and conflate them that the terms are interchangeable, surely?
And what is that they have to license? Unless you are talking about some new issue I don't know about... it is a (group of) patents. That group of patents + the patent holders refusing to license them in a free-software friendly are the issue.
Ok, so you've changed your position again - first you say "where did I mention patents" and I point it out, and now you're changing your argument to how this is about patents not being licenced in an open-friendly way. Stick to one argument perhaps?
Again, there's nothing stopping Mozilla shipping an MPL licensed version of Firefox with the H.264 portion in a proprietary section,
I suppose that in your world view, the only thing preventing Microsoft from linking to GPL code in their code products is an "ideological position", right? They would/just/ have to change the licence and possibly their business model, but that's just ideological.
There really isn't any reason why Firefox can't have proprietary/closed pieces in it - this is why the MPL exists, and why Firefox is under a tri-licence, so they can link closed code against a GPL core. Whatever Microsoft do is irrelevant - you are just trying to bring up a strawman argument. What we're talking about here is the Firefox project, its licences and the code it contains, and the stance that the maintainers of that code have taken re: H.264. My argument is *purely* that it's an ideological position, since there exist no legal or technical barriers to supporting H.264. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with their position in this argument, merely stating that it is totally ideological. My personal belief is that open, royalty free web standards are important but that H.264 is not the battle on which to fight this - we need to get HTML5 up to a proper head of steam first, to get rid of Flash, and then work on the video codec (since HTML5 is codec neutral, when a really good open codec comes along, that will be the way to go - it could be Dirac).
Alternatively they can hand off to the underlying OS if it supports playback - like the plugin MS has made for Chrome. There's no legal reason why they can't do either of these things, as they can definitely afford the licensing cost.
Such a move would only benefit those who have interest on controlling the web (remember last time that happened - one company controlling the web? and remember who opened the web again?). Why should Mozilla go out of their way to help them? It is telling that MS is the one writing the plugins for Firefox and Chrome (but not webm support for IE9). I suppose that those are just "ideological positions" with no basis on reality, right?
(It baffles me how intelligent people can oppose the idea of an open web because it is "ideological". Yes, it is, but as many, many ideas, they have very direct practical implications. Just look at the MPEG-LA attempt to establish a patent pool for VP8 - I'm sure they are not doing just for the evilness of doing it.)
Oh stop being so paranoid. Content providers want to serve high quality video to as many people as possible, as cheaply as possible. They will pick the format that works the best for them, and right now that is H.264 even with the royalties (the free codecs just don;t have the quality [over and above h.264] or the installed hardware decoding on mobile devices). Such a move (supporting H.264 in all browsers) would help to ensure video streaming can be easily handled with H.264, the format that has already won. Whether tha
You mean like the mini-Displayport - a port they standardised and has been rolled into the displayport standard, that is also royalty free?
All of the ports on the back of a Mac are standard - USB, Firewire, Mini-displayport, ethernet, 3.5mm hybrid toslink/analog audio, SD card reader (some machines)...
Sorry, what "trendy white gold latched cable that I can only use with one computer" are you talking about? None of my cables that are hooked up to my Mac are from Apple, except the power cord and that's a standard IEC "kettle lead" too.
The toughest one I've done is the 12" Powerbook and even that's not too bad. Certainly it't on a par with the HP laptop in the video though - it's not like taking a laptop apart is like replacing the batteries in your TV remote.
Have you ever owned or opened one up to service one?
I've stripped down multiple Apple laptops, from the G3 and earlier generation up to the Intel era. They're no more difficult to service than PC laptops, and no quicker to go "obsolete" compared to PC laptops. The metal (and thick polycarbonate bodies of the old ones) they use are pretty rugged in the notebook arena (especially compared to the plastic bodies of many PC laptops), although they are clearly not indestructible and a couple of models have had "common weak points" - like the Tibook hinges, or the iBook with 16Mb of video RAM with the dodgy GPU.
Apple have "innovated" a lot in this area in terms of "green" computing with the materials they use to assemble them. They're highly recyclable, and they have eliminated BFRs and other nasty stuff from internal components.
It sounds like you want them to be as easy to open and swap out RAM, HD etc as a desktop tower (which Apple have made very easy in the past with their towers - no screws, just handles, and no screws on internal components, the use of drive caddies, modular fan systems, entire fold down sides that expose the logic board completely like the G4 tower while the machine is still running). You just can't really do that in a laptop - miniaturisation, heat issues and case strength are all too important. If you make it easy for the average computer user to upgrade the thing would be huge.
Apple won't be dropping ethernet just because light peak can also carry ethernet data. They didn't drop it when they introduced firewire (which also does IP networking if you want it to), did they?
This (and this is a rumour article, and in no way constitutes a press release from Apple, but assuming that light peak on MPBs is what will happen) is just the new high speed external I/O. USB keyboards will still be USB, Bluetooth keyboards will still be Bluetooth, ethernet cables will still be RJ-45.
It could make a great port replicator though - one cord attaches to the MBP, with all your other cables (usb, ethernet, FW, etc) hooked up to a port replicator already on your desk. Obviously optional.
As far as royalties on the firewire connector, it's $0.25 per device (regardless of ports) and the money is split between several companies, including Apple. I suppose Intel and Apple could do something similar here, but given the way Apple took mini-Displayport (it's royalty free), I think they learned their lesson on port royalties. No idea what Intel will do though.
right - when the patents expires, Firefox might be able to include it. Is that what you meant?)
Here you imply that it is a patent issue that is causing the issue, when in reality it is a licensing and royalty issue, but so many people on slashdot confuse and conflate them that the terms are interchangeable, surely?
Again, there's nothing stopping Mozilla shipping an MPL licensed version of Firefox with the H.264 portion in a proprietary section, linked to the OSS parts. That's the reason the MPL exists in the first place. Alternatively they can hand off to the underlying OS if it supports playback - like the plugin MS has made for Chrome. There's no legal reason why they can't do either of these things, as they can definitely afford the licensing cost.
So don't ship it with the source. Have it as a separate module. Mozilla already has a licence that allows this - the MPL. Or they can ship an inbuilt plugin/method that hands off H.264 streams to the underlying OS
There is no legal reason why they cannot offer it. Their reasons are entirely 100% ideological (which is fine, but just being clear here).
Their science content is still excellent (if a little tuned to the layperson, and with the odd fluff like stagazing live) and their nature programs are also excellent.
Match of the Day 2 is always appreciated, so I don't have to watch it as silly o'clock. I am also enjoying Being Human at the moment.
I have also watched a fair few films on iPlayer - I had never seen Wall.E before, for example, until the BBC streamed it on iPlayer. They did the same with a number of films over Christmas too (like The Incredibles). I don't watch "live" (as in, broadcasting right now) stuff on non BBC channels due to adverts, so I don't watch Film4 or ITV2 etc at all unless I know what's coming up and I specifically want to watch it so that I can hit pause on the TV and go away for about 30 minutes to make sure I can fast forward through all the ads and "catch up" to real time by the end of the show.
And despite what you think of the BBC's news, I still find it to be the best I have come across as a broadcaster, although I also get a wide view from a number of internet sources also.
My viewing tends to be much less planned than that, though, which is why the BBC works for me, especially with iPlayer.
The do, but the "joke" here is that there are bugs (that really should have been caught earlier) in the calendar software in iOS that affects the alarms set before the DST shift. Repeating alarms went off an hour late, non repeating ones an hour early, if they were set before the DST adjustment took place.
The clock in the phone adjusts fine, but the calendar software loses track of the time on that day.
Firefox already features patented technologies, such as jpeg, or did you mean "royalties"?
There's also no no law preventing Mozilla from including H.264, they can easily afford the licensing cost since it is capped and well, well within their budget. I understand their ideological position and respect them for taking a stand (even if I might disagree a little) but let's not pretend it's illegal for them to do it.
BBC iPlayer has nothing to do with Apple. It is the name of the BBC's internet streaming TV catchup service. They show the content tht the main BBC channels show in the UK, including a great deal of the stuff they licence from other broadcasters.
It has nothing to do with Apple, other than sharing a common small letter i as the first letter of the name.
I can see why you posted AC. Hard to be so utterly wrong, when a a 5 second search on Google would have told you what it was all about.
It's one unit (the SD card reader) - it plugs into the port on the bottom, just like a device that plugs into the Archos' USB port. The only difference is the shape of the connector.
The "dock connector" is typically what the 30 pin port on the bottom of the iPad and iPhone are called, it's not a separate device.
There is also an actual Dock for the iPad, and it has a keyboard built in, and it holds the iPad at an angle. There are others ones too without the keyboard. They are not required to use the SD card reader.
It would be nice if the iPad had an SD card slot built in, like the iMac and Macbook Pro, but I suspect we'll see that on the iPad 2.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm, I can't tell if you're being serious or not.
A dodgy, enormously blatant iPad knockoff selling out of Hong Kong only with no bluetooth, only 4GB storage by default (with a maximum amount bringing it up to the lowest iPad storage amount), and an advertised 3 hour battery life (seriously, 3 hours!).
Not junk at all. No sir.
If you were posting this sarcastically as evidence of non-junk cheap tablets then I think you have just demonstrated why the iPad is selling well. If it was just to show an example of what we're talking about, I think you found an ideal one.
By using the built in multi-axis accelerometers?
They received $56.8 million from google alone in 2006 as part of the search box revenue. That is more than $6.5 million dollars. I know it's not profit, and they have running costs and salaries etc to pay, but they could make room for the capped H.264 licence.
I think it's telling on the price point. Everyone assumes that Apple has just slapped a massive profit margin on the iPad and released it (even though it was released a few hundred cheaper than most estimates originally, they just revised downwards), but I think people are starting to realise that the components really are that expensive right now and that it's very, very difficult to undershoot the price of the iPad while keeping the hardware decent (it is a benefit to Apple that they have economies of scale already working to their advantage).
Inevitably the prices will fall on all sides, but the cavalier attitude that Android would "have it in the bag" because there would be a flurry of tablets of the same quality as the iPad but much cheaper has gone, because they are just not appearing yet - they're all equivalent in price or higher (or are just considerably sub-par in the hardware department).
Apple really hit the market perfectly with the iPad. They walked in and cleaned up, establishing a solid presence that continues to grow and no one has been able to match them yet. It won't be that way forever, but right now the iPad really is king, at a price point few are able to match.
Unless you have an enterprise licence, when you can do anything you like.
On the consumer side, it's more accurate to describe it as a gated community - in general no one really cares what you do inside there, unless you start making waves. The number of "high profile" "banned" apps is very small compared to the whole ecosystem. For the vast majority of developers and users they are simply not affected by it at all and are doing just fine within the walls.
It's not for everyone of course, and I think Android was an inevitable result of the iOS ecosystem, and they will certainly make each other better. Everyone wins.
The worst possible thing you can do is underestimate or belittle the competition as you have done in your flamebait post. The iOS ecosystem has some well-documented controls, but the sort of hyperbole demonstrated here really oversells it and just puts you out of touch with exactly what it is like, which leads to complacency. How many people on here, for example, still harp on about how iOS is not ready for enterprise because of the "good luck getting your secret/NDA covered app through the app store lolz!" without realising that there's a whole separate in-house deployment system for iOS in enterprise. I saw it a lot in the NFL article about iPads replacing paper for coaches, for instance. It's comments like yours that fosters this sort of ignorance. You don;t actually stop to look at exactly what it is you're rallying against. It really is just "oh, it's made by Apple/Microsoft/Sony/OtherBigBusiness, therefore I don't actually need to do any research on it, I just know it's bad and will now spout off opinion as if it were fact". It's tiresome.
Where do we go from here if you are doubting my story. I would show you photographs of the disassembles I have done for the people who were curious about what their machines looked like inside, but that feels a little bit like a petty high school "he said, she said" argument.
I have done Dells too - most recently I walked a close friend through taking apart an Inspiron 1501 so she could clean the fan and heatsink radiator. I don't think that one counts to my total though, since I did it over the phone while I was sat in a field and never actually saw the laptop. Maybe she was just tricking me and not actually taking anything apart and just wasting my time.
Like I mentioned either in this thread or another one lower down, the hardest one to do was the 12" PB G4 due to the way it was intricately layered. I had to replace the optical drive, which as you know means pretty much taking it down to the case (you even have to take out the logic board), but even this was not "difficult" in the sense of being too hard to do, you just need to take your time and watch for connectors and areas where things overlap. The service manuals are well illustrated with photos and screw points, so as long as you start with a sheet of A4 and rule out some squares to mark out steps you can create checkpoints for yourself to go backwards when assembling.
A couple of credit cards make short work of getting the case open, although I actually found that my RAC membership card worked slightly better - it's slightly thinner and more flexible than a credit card. It also works a treat to pop the recessed latches on a white iMac.
Some are easier than others - there are Macbooks where changing the HD is a case of opening the access door in battery bay, or as in the old Tibook the HD is accessible by just taking the bottom case off.
Replacing the wireless card in an iBook is a case of "just taking off the keyboard" - the designs are varied and some things are easier than others.
However, since you don't believe I've ever actually taken a laptop apart, all I can say is "fair enough, I suppose I can't really argue with you", making this post pointless.
Just for the record though, off the top of my head:
* HD in a 600Mhz G3 iBook
* HD in 17" G4 PB
* HD in 12" PB (1Ghz)
* Optical drive in same 12" PB 12 months later (user broke off a CD inside drive and ruined it)
* HD in a different 12" PB G4
* Inverter board in that 12" PB about 2 years later (even taking the display apart is not that tricky, also repaired the spot welded screw housings on this repair since they are pretty weak and had separated from the cover)
* Fan in Inspiron 1501 (then later talked user through strip down and cleaning procedure from a field in Nottinghamshire)
* removal of a 2p piece from a Dell Inspiron.
* HD in Fujitsu... hmmm something or other
* HD in original Macbook
* HD in numerous Dell/HP laptops
* plenty of others I can't remember, including
From this list we can see that HDs seem to go a lot! Although abut half of them are merely upgrades rather than HD failures.
But no, as you say, perhaps I just dreamed it all.
It's cathartic for me.
It's like detoxing after a heavy night on the sauce.
Having done tech support before, he barely even pushes into the patience reserves.
To promote a web built on open standards and to offer an alternative to MS, Google and Apple? You know, like it is now.
H.264 has won the battle already. It is not going away. It's the mp3 of the current video era (patented and requires royalties). Right now the battle needs to be getting HTML5 into prime position, and getting rid of Flash. After that, work on the video codec because right now no one is going anywhere other than H.264.
Mozilla can still give FF away for Free, and can offer a fully open version without the H.264 module, or just have the module as a separate install for Linux users.
Nothing is totally black and white - sometimes you have to compromise to make it in the world, and there is a history of that on Linux that does make it better. Closed source video drivers for example - I know some people think they are abhorrent, but they have allowed me to get into Ubuntu and make an old machine usable. One more Linux user in the fold! All thanks tot non-Free software. But hey, what's the point of that eh?
* Mozilla can't license those patents and keep firefox free.
Yes they can.
They have the money to pay for the licences (it's a capped value and they can afford the highest amount), and they can roll a closed package that can be linked against the GPL part of Firefox using the MPL. They can release two versions, one with and one without H.264 if they really want. Or they can build in the ability to hand off the H.264 stream to the underlying OS without breaking any laws or having to pay any licence fees.
* Mozilla can't leave it to the OS, because doing so will alienate part of their users (linux users who are not violating the patents)
Right, and what about those users who used to be regular FF users who have moved away from it because it doesn't support the most common video format? Whichever way they go they are going to alienate some users. I guess they have to decide whether desktop Linux (where they can easily roll an H.264-free version since the module would be a separate piece) is a big enough install base to worry about. (In my opinion, yes, but then I don't make the decisions). Either way, there's nothing stopping them having a separate installer pack for H.264 that bolts onto an "untainted" FF install.
Also, if Mozilla has paid for the licences, there's no legal barrier to H.264 on Linux.
Like I said at the very beginning - I can see *why* they don't want to pay the MPEG LA for H.264 licences, but there's no legal reason that they cannot put in H.264 as long as they do pay. I agree that the web should be fully open, but I am also a realist - H.264 is not going away until something better comes along. And in the current situation "royalty free" is *not enough* to enough people to make WebM better than H.264, even if we assume they are technically equivalent.
right - when the patents expires, Firefox might be able to include it. Is that what you meant?)
Here you imply that it is a patent issue that is causing the issue, when in reality it is a licensing and royalty issue, but so many people on slashdot confuse and conflate them that the terms are interchangeable, surely?
And what is that they have to license? Unless you are talking about some new issue I don't know about... it is a (group of) patents. That group of patents + the patent holders refusing to license them in a free-software friendly are the issue.
Ok, so you've changed your position again - first you say "where did I mention patents" and I point it out, and now you're changing your argument to how this is about patents not being licenced in an open-friendly way. Stick to one argument perhaps?
Again, there's nothing stopping Mozilla shipping an MPL licensed version of Firefox with the H.264 portion in a proprietary section,
I suppose that in your world view, the only thing preventing Microsoft from linking to GPL code in their code products is an "ideological position", right? They would /just/ have to change the licence and possibly their business model, but that's just ideological.
There really isn't any reason why Firefox can't have proprietary/closed pieces in it - this is why the MPL exists, and why Firefox is under a tri-licence, so they can link closed code against a GPL core. Whatever Microsoft do is irrelevant - you are just trying to bring up a strawman argument. What we're talking about here is the Firefox project, its licences and the code it contains, and the stance that the maintainers of that code have taken re: H.264. My argument is *purely* that it's an ideological position, since there exist no legal or technical barriers to supporting H.264. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with their position in this argument, merely stating that it is totally ideological. My personal belief is that open, royalty free web standards are important but that H.264 is not the battle on which to fight this - we need to get HTML5 up to a proper head of steam first, to get rid of Flash, and then work on the video codec (since HTML5 is codec neutral, when a really good open codec comes along, that will be the way to go - it could be Dirac).
Alternatively they can hand off to the underlying OS if it supports playback - like the plugin MS has made for Chrome. There's no legal reason why they can't do either of these things, as they can definitely afford the licensing cost.
Such a move would only benefit those who have interest on controlling the web (remember last time that happened - one company controlling the web? and remember who opened the web again?). Why should Mozilla go out of their way to help them? It is telling that MS is the one writing the plugins for Firefox and Chrome (but not webm support for IE9). I suppose that those are just "ideological positions" with no basis on reality, right?
(It baffles me how intelligent people can oppose the idea of an open web because it is "ideological". Yes, it is, but as many, many ideas, they have very direct practical implications. Just look at the MPEG-LA attempt to establish a patent pool for VP8 - I'm sure they are not doing just for the evilness of doing it.)
Oh stop being so paranoid. Content providers want to serve high quality video to as many people as possible, as cheaply as possible. They will pick the format that works the best for them, and right now that is H.264 even with the royalties (the free codecs just don;t have the quality [over and above h.264] or the installed hardware decoding on mobile devices). Such a move (supporting H.264 in all browsers) would help to ensure video streaming can be easily handled with H.264, the format that has already won. Whether tha
I did a G3 iBook - had an old 600Mhz G3 and replaced the HD a couple of times.
It eventually gave up the ghost when someone cracked the screen hinge mounting and I figured it was time for an upgrade.
You mean like the mini-Displayport - a port they standardised and has been rolled into the displayport standard, that is also royalty free?
All of the ports on the back of a Mac are standard - USB, Firewire, Mini-displayport, ethernet, 3.5mm hybrid toslink/analog audio, SD card reader (some machines)...
Sorry, what "trendy white gold latched cable that I can only use with one computer" are you talking about? None of my cables that are hooked up to my Mac are from Apple, except the power cord and that's a standard IEC "kettle lead" too.
The new ones are really easy.
The toughest one I've done is the 12" Powerbook and even that's not too bad. Certainly it't on a par with the HP laptop in the video though - it's not like taking a laptop apart is like replacing the batteries in your TV remote.
All the optical drives in laptops are pretty standard parts.
I have dropped a few random whitebox ones into people who wanted upgrades on their old powerbooks that didn't have DVD-R drives.
Have you ever owned or opened one up to service one?
I've stripped down multiple Apple laptops, from the G3 and earlier generation up to the Intel era. They're no more difficult to service than PC laptops, and no quicker to go "obsolete" compared to PC laptops. The metal (and thick polycarbonate bodies of the old ones) they use are pretty rugged in the notebook arena (especially compared to the plastic bodies of many PC laptops), although they are clearly not indestructible and a couple of models have had "common weak points" - like the Tibook hinges, or the iBook with 16Mb of video RAM with the dodgy GPU.
Apple have "innovated" a lot in this area in terms of "green" computing with the materials they use to assemble them. They're highly recyclable, and they have eliminated BFRs and other nasty stuff from internal components.
It sounds like you want them to be as easy to open and swap out RAM, HD etc as a desktop tower (which Apple have made very easy in the past with their towers - no screws, just handles, and no screws on internal components, the use of drive caddies, modular fan systems, entire fold down sides that expose the logic board completely like the G4 tower while the machine is still running). You just can't really do that in a laptop - miniaturisation, heat issues and case strength are all too important. If you make it easy for the average computer user to upgrade the thing would be huge.
Apple won't be dropping ethernet just because light peak can also carry ethernet data. They didn't drop it when they introduced firewire (which also does IP networking if you want it to), did they?
This (and this is a rumour article, and in no way constitutes a press release from Apple, but assuming that light peak on MPBs is what will happen) is just the new high speed external I/O. USB keyboards will still be USB, Bluetooth keyboards will still be Bluetooth, ethernet cables will still be RJ-45.
It could make a great port replicator though - one cord attaches to the MBP, with all your other cables (usb, ethernet, FW, etc) hooked up to a port replicator already on your desk. Obviously optional.
No royalties to Apple - it's Intel's.
As far as royalties on the firewire connector, it's $0.25 per device (regardless of ports) and the money is split between several companies, including Apple. I suppose Intel and Apple could do something similar here, but given the way Apple took mini-Displayport (it's royalty free), I think they learned their lesson on port royalties. No idea what Intel will do though.
right - when the patents expires, Firefox might be able to include it. Is that what you meant?)
Here you imply that it is a patent issue that is causing the issue, when in reality it is a licensing and royalty issue, but so many people on slashdot confuse and conflate them that the terms are interchangeable, surely?
Again, there's nothing stopping Mozilla shipping an MPL licensed version of Firefox with the H.264 portion in a proprietary section, linked to the OSS parts. That's the reason the MPL exists in the first place. Alternatively they can hand off to the underlying OS if it supports playback - like the plugin MS has made for Chrome. There's no legal reason why they can't do either of these things, as they can definitely afford the licensing cost.
So don't ship it with the source. Have it as a separate module. Mozilla already has a licence that allows this - the MPL. Or they can ship an inbuilt plugin/method that hands off H.264 streams to the underlying OS
There is no legal reason why they cannot offer it. Their reasons are entirely 100% ideological (which is fine, but just being clear here).
Their science content is still excellent (if a little tuned to the layperson, and with the odd fluff like stagazing live) and their nature programs are also excellent.
Match of the Day 2 is always appreciated, so I don't have to watch it as silly o'clock. I am also enjoying Being Human at the moment.
I have also watched a fair few films on iPlayer - I had never seen Wall.E before, for example, until the BBC streamed it on iPlayer. They did the same with a number of films over Christmas too (like The Incredibles). I don't watch "live" (as in, broadcasting right now) stuff on non BBC channels due to adverts, so I don't watch Film4 or ITV2 etc at all unless I know what's coming up and I specifically want to watch it so that I can hit pause on the TV and go away for about 30 minutes to make sure I can fast forward through all the ads and "catch up" to real time by the end of the show.
And despite what you think of the BBC's news, I still find it to be the best I have come across as a broadcaster, although I also get a wide view from a number of internet sources also.
My viewing tends to be much less planned than that, though, which is why the BBC works for me, especially with iPlayer.
The do, but the "joke" here is that there are bugs (that really should have been caught earlier) in the calendar software in iOS that affects the alarms set before the DST shift. Repeating alarms went off an hour late, non repeating ones an hour early, if they were set before the DST adjustment took place.
The clock in the phone adjusts fine, but the calendar software loses track of the time on that day.
Firefox already features patented technologies, such as jpeg, or did you mean "royalties"?
There's also no no law preventing Mozilla from including H.264, they can easily afford the licensing cost since it is capped and well, well within their budget. I understand their ideological position and respect them for taking a stand (even if I might disagree a little) but let's not pretend it's illegal for them to do it.
BBC iPlayer has nothing to do with Apple. It is the name of the BBC's internet streaming TV catchup service. They show the content tht the main BBC channels show in the UK, including a great deal of the stuff they licence from other broadcasters.
It has nothing to do with Apple, other than sharing a common small letter i as the first letter of the name.
I can see why you posted AC. Hard to be so utterly wrong, when a a 5 second search on Google would have told you what it was all about.
It's one unit (the SD card reader) - it plugs into the port on the bottom, just like a device that plugs into the Archos' USB port. The only difference is the shape of the connector.
The "dock connector" is typically what the 30 pin port on the bottom of the iPad and iPhone are called, it's not a separate device.
There is also an actual Dock for the iPad, and it has a keyboard built in, and it holds the iPad at an angle. There are others ones too without the keyboard. They are not required to use the SD card reader.
It would be nice if the iPad had an SD card slot built in, like the iMac and Macbook Pro, but I suspect we'll see that on the iPad 2.
Mozilla Firefox (~30% of the browser market share) will never have support for H.264. Never.
And Valve said that Half Life 2 would never be on the Mac. Never.
Times change.