I think much gruff around any ereader boils down to users who don't actually want to read.
Is that what you tell yourself? That people who prefer tablets over ereaders are illiterate luddites?
*laughs*... I think he was saying "users who don't actually want to read on the device". I'm pretty sure he wasn't implying that people without eink devices are illiterate...!
Ereaders are a horrible attempt at replacing real books, and I frankly feel those people who prefer ebooks over real ones are the luddites.
Hey, don't knock it 'til you've tried it. I bought a kindle when I went backpacking round the world for five months, fully expecting to dislike the experience but reasoning that since there was no way I could carry all the paper books I would read in that time, it was a necessary evil. But I absolutely loved reading on it, and now that I'm back home I wish the paper books I still have backed up on my reading list were ebooks instead. It's just a more convenient interface for reading, is all -- smaller, lighter, no losing your place and although the typography isn't quite up to pbooks yet it's good enough for me, and I'm notoriously picky about all things formatting. Want to be reading three books at once? You can actually do that now, without carrying around the extra weight.
Or cutting off your nose to spite your face is fair play bitch. Samsung makes more money selling iPhones than Samsung phones
Citation? Samsung is making a huge profit right now through their smartphone sales, whilst their profits from most other components is falling. In Q2 of this year, Samsung sold way more phones than Apple. Phone sales, right now, are top dollar for Samsung.
And if Apple's sales of an iPhone5 gets blocked, what do think will happen to Samsung's sales? Do you think they might just happen to rise even further?
Not sure it's evil; they just want people to use their real names so that people don't act like fucking idiots, like they do on Slashdot, because everyone will then know they're a fucking idiot.
But/. is a bit different to a social network. On/., only a few friends actually know who I am, and my anonymity is more or less real. I can behave like a total tool, and the worst hit I'll ever get is losing my karma bonus. But on a social network, I'm interacting with my friends, who all know exactly who I am irrespective of my pseudonym (they wouldn't be friends with me if they didn't!) There's no anonymity from my social circle, irrespective of whether I use a pseudonym or not; the only anonymity a pseudonym provides is from the corporate world and the wider public.
So if you behave like a jerk on a social network, you'll suffer the consequences socially. There is absolutely no advantage in terms of etiquette and behaviour in forcing people to use their real names in this situation. People already behave as if they're being judged by their peers, because they are.
Google in this case are either being (a) stupid or (b) disingenuous in claiming that their real names policy is about enforcing standards of social behaviour. But either way, it's all a bit moot. All Google's achieved by their draconian names policy (which would only have affected a tiny handful of users in any case!) is a lot of bad press, a loss of momentum and a loss of trust. Not a very sound business model in my book!
If google plus dies, I doubt it will be because so many users are upset they had to use their real name.
I'm not so sure. In the beginning, g+ had enormous momentum and excellent press. The media picked up on the concept of a new social network that wasn't the Big Bad facebook, and loved it for that reason (and that reason only). How many times did you read about how wonderful circles were, compared to g+ being fantastic because it "wasn't facebook"? If they'd made g+ public after the first month of great press and in the midst of all the hype, I suspect g+ would have had an excellent chance of sending facebook the way of myspace.
But it all went wrong when nymwars started -- suddenly the media coverage was unfavourable, and Google was being associated with being evil. And more specifically, they were being associated invading privacy, which is also the reason people hate facebook. Ultimately, why would you go to the trouble of switching social networks if you still ended up with someone trying to use your private details for profit?
Google has made potentially the worst marketing decision in their life here. They could have secured a monopoly on social networking, and combined with a monopoly on search and an approaching monopoly in the smartphone market they would have been unstoppable. Instead, they blew it by revealing their evil colours too early, before everyone was helplessly hooked.
How on earth did this twaddle get modded "insightful"??
First, the study of climate (or astronomy) is not strictly a science. There are no opportunities to conduct controlled experiments. This is not inherently bad, but one must be careful not to label something a "science" when a sincere argument can be made that it is not. Luminaries such as Richard Feynman made such arguments, so I don't think one would be in bad company when saying that this study is not a science.
As someone who didn't conduct controlled experiments, I'm not entirely sure Feynman would agree with you there! Being able to construct a complex model and compare it to real world observations is most definitely science. Sure, it would be great if you could conduct perfectly controlled experiments, but in situations where you can't this isn't an impediment. You have to be a little more careful with your conclusions, but making observational studies from different situations in which you can assess and effectively control for other variables is perfectly acceptable.
You're either not a scientist or you probably shouldn't be, so let me direct you to Wikipedia's nice summary of the scientific method. Read and learn. And then consider how forming a hypothesis, constructing a model and testing the model fit into that realm. Alternatively, please declare that Kepler, Newton, Watson, Crick, Einstein and a certain RP Feynman, to name just a few, were not scientists since none of them were working with controlled experiments.
In any case, there are heaps of opportunities to conduct controlled experiments in climate science, as regards radiation absorption/emission by gasses in the atmosphere. A lot of this was done in the 50s and 60s, and the data forms the foundation for current modelling.
The wrongness is when those very same people take their study results in to the political limelight and say to the effect "This is the sky; it is falling; and you must do as I say or evil will happen." Doesn't the notion of conflict of interest enter here?
What, the "I'll be screwed along with the rest of the world if we don't do something" conflict-of-interest? I sincerely hope you're not a looney conspiracy theorist who thinks climate scientists are making it all up for profit... (Hint: as a scientist, I can assure you that there's no profit in science and that research funds don't include personal spending. I'd love it if they did, but sadly those cunning pollies have one over us there...) In any case, I'm not aware of any scientist who has come out and said "you must do as I say or evil will happen." The only thing climatologists have been saying is that we can't keep on doing what we've happily been doing for the last hundred years. How you solve this problem is another matter entirely.
Out of curiosity, if a branch of science was able to predict a catastrophe with a high degree of confidence and failed to warn anyone, would you consider them to be acting nobly, or irresponsibly? Should seismologists not warn of earthquakes or tsunamis because of a potential conflict of interest??
There are many responses to how we could manage our changing climate. I am happy to read the research.
You know, maybe you should have read the research before posting. Just saying...
In what way? By making less and less profits quarter over quarter as its only way to compete is by making their phones cheaper by continually decreasing the profit margins on their devices? Apple now gets 2/3rds of the global smartphone profits while HTC is now fighting amongst a half dozen other big companies for an ever shrinking pool of profits
I'm not so sure your logic holds here. What's the Android phone (almost) everyone wants? The Galaxy S II. What's the most expensive Android phone? The Galaxy S II. Who's making the most profits in the Android market right now? Samsung.
HTC had a great thing going with their early Android phones, but they've dropped the ball in terms of hardware this year. That's why they're not doing so well right now; it's nothing to do with Android.
... and is fighting a similar race to the bottom that has led to HP to ditch its PC division.
By your logic, HP would have saved its PC division by getting itself a new OS and differentiating itself via software. Boy, if only they'd bought WebOS back in the day, how much better things would be for them now! Oh, wait...
People don't give a fuck about hardware specs, just that its 'good enough', at that point software makes the difference. And the difference with Android is what? The amount of carrier mandated shit they put on your phone or how long it takes to jailbreak it.... err, root it.
If you think that, you've never met a sales person. If they have a customer looking at the cheapest, lowest-spec'ed Android phone, then they'll point out to the customer why it's absolutely vital that they have a phone with a dual core processor, and a bigger screen, and a higher resolution screen, and a higher resolution camera, and more storage space, and more RAM, and...
I would argue that from a sales perspective, it's all about the hardware once you've convinced the customer that they want Android rather than iOS. As for any other OS... well, have you seen how well Symbian, Bada, WP7, etc, are doing? Most app developers are going to write software for two OSes at most -- nothing else is going to get a look in. Just look at the number of apps Bada has right now. Or WebOS, for that matter...
When they start using words like 'trick', trying to insult peoples' intelligence by telling them that it is a special scientific word and tacking data together that is unrelated to each other and measured in completely different ways I wonder why that would be?
Obviously it's all a conspiracy theory, so that a global UN government can arise and give victory to the communists! We tried to hide it, but you saw through it!!
Or, you know, you could read things in context and use your brain. It's a tough choice, sometimes...
No, dude, some science is settled. In fact, a lot of it is. AGW isn't quite one of those things, but it is above the threshold of reasonable denial, until a mountain of evidence appears to overturn it. Until then, there is only unreasonable denial.
This is the problem that I have with climate change scientists and proponents. While we cannot be averse to the notion that what we do affects our own climate, the question is how and by how much? Despite all protestations to the contrary that evidence is simply not there, and when you question it the above is a classic example of what the discussion boils down to - surely if we are doing something then it must have an effect.
You appear to be ignorant of (a) all research into atmospheric feedbacks and forcings and (b) all research into climate modelling. There's a substantial body of work out there (hint: Google Scholar is your friend)... perhaps you should read some of it. As for the question of how and how much, the IPCC report has a good summary of multi-model predictions, which in turn was based on Tebaldi et al., 2004, Greene et al., 2006 and Furrer et al., 2007...
Currently, we know that the earth is warming, and warming substantially faster -- and to a greater extent -- than any time previously in the last 800,000 years. We know that CO2 can act as a forcing on global temperatures (and thanks to extensive research in the 50s and 60s we know this very accurately). We know that human activity has substantially increased the atmospheric concentration of CO2. We know that other GHGs can also act as forcings or feedbacks. We know that the temperature rises we are currently seeing fit extremely well with the prediction that current climate change is a result of human activity increasing the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere. Furthermore, we do not know of any other cause that could explain the temperature rise we are observing. We know that models based on research into atmospheric forcings accurately model current and past climates, and also predict a rapid and significant temperature increase if we continue to increase the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere.
The most parsimonious explanation by far, based on current research, is that increasing the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere has resulted in significant, rapid warming and will continue to cause significant, rapid warming.
2. Next you have to prove it will KEEP getting warmer, i.e. that it isn't a cyclical process at work. It has been much warmer than it is now in the not too distant past. The Romans grew grapes and exported wine from England when they ruled there.
Do you have refs for the Romans exporting wine from England?? There's some evidence for a (very) few Roman vinyards in Britain, but I'm not aware of anyone who's demonstrated that the industry was extensive (or good) enough to export to the much larger wine producing regions elsewhere in the empire. In any case, if grapes are a proxy for climate change, then unfortunately for you Britain grows grapes in a much larger scale today.
I mean, really. If you're going to attempt to refute AGW, at least start with some more reliable and documented evidence. (Why is it that denialists never cite references? Hand-waving, apparently, overrules 100 years of scientific research...)
I think I'd have to put a new ROM on entirely, and I don't like that much hastle, or the risk of screwing something up.
It's really not much of a hassle (providing you back up all user Apps+Data with Titanium and everything else with dedicated tools (SMS with SMS Backup and Restore from the market is the only thing I've ever backed up separately)) You can (and should) always do a nandroid backup before touching a thing, as you can then restore it if -- in the very worst case scenario -- you lose anything.
It's also quite amazing how much faster the Desire feels when you strip the hideous Sense bloatware off it! I still can't believe how much HTC undersold that phone by encumbering it with ghastly software... And if you want to run Gingerbread on the Desire, using a non-HTC ROM is the only way to go. (Note that you can get Gingerbread + HTC Sense custom ROMs from XDA, if you happen to like Sense -- still way better than the official HTC ROMs!)
Anyway, good luck if you do decide to try it; otherwise, too bad about the unfreezable/unremovable bloatware...:(
But even if that were true for software, it's not true, for example, in biopharm. It costs hundreds of millions, or even billions, to bring a drug to market.
Sure, like evergreening drug patents is an excellent way to bring drugs to the masses...!
When big pharma spends more R&D money on evergreening than on new drug discovery (which is currently the case) then the patent system has problems. Big problems. I agree that we need pharma, and that drug design driven by pharma is vitally important as governments simply don't have the money. But the patent system as it applies to pharma is still rotten to the core.
Interesting how YMMV. I see tablets (iPad 99% of the time) everywhere. Not so much in business/school situations (as you say a netbook/laptop is better for that), but definitely lots of tablets on the bus/train. Also they are becoming ubiquitous on flights (particularly in planes without seat-back IVRs... lotta people pull out their iPad to pass the time).
Interesting, as I'm also in Australia (in Melbourne) and I've seen precious few tablets around in any form. On trains and trams, I still see heaps of laptops; whereas the number of tabs I've seen since I got back here from overseas a month ago I can count on the fingers of one hand. My impression is that most people are using their smartphones for the types of things you'd do with tablets -- I often spend my train ride surfing the net, and many people around me are doing exactly the same.
I haven't seen anyone using a table at a cafe since I've been back (the closest was seeing a dude with a tablet at the restaurant I went to last night, although he didn't use it once the entire time and it mostly seemed to serve the purpose of mopping up sauce...:)
The big change I've noticed over the last six months is the big increase in the numbers of android phones (despite Oz being rather late to the party as regards androids, and seriously overcharging as always.) With 4.3" phone screens, the need for a separate tablet becomes significantly less, I think...
... with an HTC Desire?? There are better ways to root (as the actress said)... try unrEVOked, for starters.
In any case, if you've got root and a custom recovery, just nuke the ROM and throw CM7 on it... you'll get rid of all the malware. You can even (in the best-kept secret of CM7) disable particular permissions for whatever software you like: don't like them having the internet? Just disable that permission! Works like a charm, and certainly makes me feel a lot safer about installing software like Swype.
I see a few people using them on the train or waiting at stops, always reading or surfing (I've never, ever seen anyone type text on a tablet in public!) In my experience there are far fewer people using tablets on PT than using laptops on PT, but they're definitely out there. (Most people that I see on PT are using smartphones for casual websurfing -- not surprising as they're much smaller and lighter, but not significantly less functional...)
Personally, I can't see the need for a tablet in my life right now -- I'd quite happily buy the asus eeepad transformer if I could justify it (which at $350 is one of the best equipped and also one of the cheapest tablets out there), but I can't honestly see where I'd use it. I have a smartphone for casual surfing, a kindle for reading and a netbook for actually doing work on. There's no place that a tablet would fit in.
Well (assuming we're limited to IT hardware here, since anything else would be way too easy) communication devices and communication protocols -- mobile phones and Wifi -- are the big ones in the last 20 years. Way, way more important and innovative than a device that's a rectangle with rounded corners.
Going back further than 20 years: flash memory, LEDs, LCD displays are all standout examples of hardware innovation.
The iPad, on the other hand, was the evolution of a long-standing concept. The product itself was neither the first tablet computer, the first handheld computer or the first device with a touchscreen. Even in terms of design within Apple, the thing is simply a very big iPod touch! I'd love to know exactly why you believe it to be the standout example of innovation in the last 20 years.
You need to think outside the box a bit (or in this case, the rectangle-with-rounded-corners)...
Actually, if you look on XDA there'll be instructions for most devices on how to flash back to stock with a broken screen (timing, numbers of keypresses, etc). And if your USB port is screwed, you can still flash back through the SD card (which is the standard method, anyway)...
It's pretty difficult to be in a situation where you can't flash back to stock (not impossible, but very difficult)...
Maybe so, but as root you can disable any or all the crap/bloat/malware you want with no penalty (I've often done so on my Desire). Just use Titanium or a similar app, or you can even do it from the commandline by calling 'pm disable...'
It's essentially the same thing as deleting the package, but it's a lot safer!
Um, yes. Possibly you are too young to remember six or so years ago (!?), but Windows Mobile was at the time a VERY successful platform.
The iPhone cratered it, because Microsoft sat on the platform for too long without real improvement and as a software base it totally sucked and could not evolve. But Microsoft has history of prior success in the mobile space and a TON of corporate relationships that, while dusty, could come back to be of use.
Er, no. Sadly, I'm not too young to remember six years ago -- on the contrary, I used PDAs and smartphones all through that period and I remember it very well. Being as kind to you as I can, I think you're probably referring to Wince PDAs, when between the end of 2004 and the start of 2007 they took over the dying PDA (non-phone) market. Unfortunately for MS, by 2004 Q4 the non-phone PDA market had essentially peaked, and was being taken over by smartphones.
And in the phone market (which is what we're talking about here), Windows Mobile was always miles behind Symbian, and then RIM, Apple and now Android OSes -- with a maximum market share of 23% in 2004 Q1, falling now to 2% with WP7 in 2011 Q2. (See this ref for Wince's peak market share, and then wikipedia lists Gartner's market share stats from 2007 onwards; unfortunately, I can't find any Gartner stats for smartphones before '07...)
History tells us that Windows on phones has been one long history of decline from a not-very-high peak. As I've said, if MS belatedly succeeds in this market, it'll be in spite of what's happened in the past. Actually, it'd be a first, despite trying to crack into it for more than seven years...
Feel free to cite contrary refs to support your claim of "VERY successful" if you can...
Vale Palm:( I still have a IIIx from 1999, and a TE from 2003; sometimes I boot them up and am still amazed at the speed of those things, with almost all software opening instantly -- Palm got portables back in the day so much better than anyone else, and I sometimes feel that tech still hasn't caught back up to where we were a decade ago. You shouldn't need 1GHz processors to do the same things Palm was doing with a 16MHz Dragonball...
Personally, I feel that the failure to release Cobalt (not on time, not late, not ever) was the death of Palm. Oh, and also all the craziness around the Flopeo in Palm's final death-throws, which was every bit as disastrous as HP's TouchPad fiasco. It's incredible, really -- Palm had the market at their feet, and lost it all.
Um, how about the blog post from Google's android dev team, It's not rooting, it's openness, that not only explains exactly how to root their flagship Nexus S phone (hint: with one adb command), but encourages it. Allow me to quote -- and remember, this is Google's official line:
The Nexus S, like the Nexus One before it, is designed to allow enthusiasts to install custom operating systems. Allowing your own boot image on a pure Nexus S is as simple as running fastboot oem unlock. It should be no surprise that modifying the operating system can give you root access to your phone. Hopefully that’s just the beginning of the changes you might make.
That's a pretty damn strong confirmation that Google supports open bootloaders, such as what HTC is now belatedly doing.
Well, no -- it's not a submission problem, it's an editorial problem.
Trolls will always submit FUD like this stupid, ignorant, misinformed article. But why/. editors let it through (especially unedited, with that ridiculous last sentence) is beyond me...
Slashdot Mirror
I think much gruff around any ereader boils down to users who don't actually want to read.
Is that what you tell yourself? That people who prefer tablets over ereaders are illiterate luddites?
*laughs* ... I think he was saying "users who don't actually want to read on the device". I'm pretty sure he wasn't implying that people without eink devices are illiterate ...!
Ereaders are a horrible attempt at replacing real books, and I frankly feel those people who prefer ebooks over real ones are the luddites.
Hey, don't knock it 'til you've tried it. I bought a kindle when I went backpacking round the world for five months, fully expecting to dislike the experience but reasoning that since there was no way I could carry all the paper books I would read in that time, it was a necessary evil. But I absolutely loved reading on it, and now that I'm back home I wish the paper books I still have backed up on my reading list were ebooks instead. It's just a more convenient interface for reading, is all -- smaller, lighter, no losing your place and although the typography isn't quite up to pbooks yet it's good enough for me, and I'm notoriously picky about all things formatting. Want to be reading three books at once? You can actually do that now, without carrying around the extra weight.
Or cutting off your nose to spite your face is fair play bitch. Samsung makes more money selling iPhones than Samsung phones
Citation? Samsung is making a huge profit right now through their smartphone sales, whilst their profits from most other components is falling. In Q2 of this year, Samsung sold way more phones than Apple. Phone sales, right now, are top dollar for Samsung.
And if Apple's sales of an iPhone5 gets blocked, what do think will happen to Samsung's sales? Do you think they might just happen to rise even further?
Not sure it's evil; they just want people to use their real names so that people don't act like fucking idiots, like they do on Slashdot, because everyone will then know they're a fucking idiot.
But /. is a bit different to a social network. On /., only a few friends actually know who I am, and my anonymity is more or less real. I can behave like a total tool, and the worst hit I'll ever get is losing my karma bonus. But on a social network, I'm interacting with my friends, who all know exactly who I am irrespective of my pseudonym (they wouldn't be friends with me if they didn't!) There's no anonymity from my social circle, irrespective of whether I use a pseudonym or not; the only anonymity a pseudonym provides is from the corporate world and the wider public.
So if you behave like a jerk on a social network, you'll suffer the consequences socially. There is absolutely no advantage in terms of etiquette and behaviour in forcing people to use their real names in this situation. People already behave as if they're being judged by their peers, because they are.
Google in this case are either being (a) stupid or (b) disingenuous in claiming that their real names policy is about enforcing standards of social behaviour. But either way, it's all a bit moot. All Google's achieved by their draconian names policy (which would only have affected a tiny handful of users in any case!) is a lot of bad press, a loss of momentum and a loss of trust. Not a very sound business model in my book!
If google plus dies, I doubt it will be because so many users are upset they had to use their real name.
I'm not so sure. In the beginning, g+ had enormous momentum and excellent press. The media picked up on the concept of a new social network that wasn't the Big Bad facebook, and loved it for that reason (and that reason only). How many times did you read about how wonderful circles were, compared to g+ being fantastic because it "wasn't facebook"? If they'd made g+ public after the first month of great press and in the midst of all the hype, I suspect g+ would have had an excellent chance of sending facebook the way of myspace.
But it all went wrong when nymwars started -- suddenly the media coverage was unfavourable, and Google was being associated with being evil. And more specifically, they were being associated invading privacy, which is also the reason people hate facebook. Ultimately, why would you go to the trouble of switching social networks if you still ended up with someone trying to use your private details for profit?
Google has made potentially the worst marketing decision in their life here. They could have secured a monopoly on social networking, and combined with a monopoly on search and an approaching monopoly in the smartphone market they would have been unstoppable. Instead, they blew it by revealing their evil colours too early, before everyone was helplessly hooked.
How on earth did this twaddle get modded "insightful"??
First, the study of climate (or astronomy) is not strictly a science. There are no opportunities to conduct controlled experiments. This is not inherently bad, but one must be careful not to label something a "science" when a sincere argument can be made that it is not. Luminaries such as Richard Feynman made such arguments, so I don't think one would be in bad company when saying that this study is not a science.
As someone who didn't conduct controlled experiments, I'm not entirely sure Feynman would agree with you there! Being able to construct a complex model and compare it to real world observations is most definitely science. Sure, it would be great if you could conduct perfectly controlled experiments, but in situations where you can't this isn't an impediment. You have to be a little more careful with your conclusions, but making observational studies from different situations in which you can assess and effectively control for other variables is perfectly acceptable.
You're either not a scientist or you probably shouldn't be, so let me direct you to Wikipedia's nice summary of the scientific method. Read and learn. And then consider how forming a hypothesis, constructing a model and testing the model fit into that realm. Alternatively, please declare that Kepler, Newton, Watson, Crick, Einstein and a certain RP Feynman, to name just a few, were not scientists since none of them were working with controlled experiments.
In any case, there are heaps of opportunities to conduct controlled experiments in climate science, as regards radiation absorption/emission by gasses in the atmosphere. A lot of this was done in the 50s and 60s, and the data forms the foundation for current modelling.
The wrongness is when those very same people take their study results in to the political limelight and say to the effect "This is the sky; it is falling; and you must do as I say or evil will happen." Doesn't the notion of conflict of interest enter here?
What, the "I'll be screwed along with the rest of the world if we don't do something" conflict-of-interest? I sincerely hope you're not a looney conspiracy theorist who thinks climate scientists are making it all up for profit ... (Hint: as a scientist, I can assure you that there's no profit in science and that research funds don't include personal spending. I'd love it if they did, but sadly those cunning pollies have one over us there ...) In any case, I'm not aware of any scientist who has come out and said "you must do as I say or evil will happen." The only thing climatologists have been saying is that we can't keep on doing what we've happily been doing for the last hundred years. How you solve this problem is another matter entirely.
Out of curiosity, if a branch of science was able to predict a catastrophe with a high degree of confidence and failed to warn anyone, would you consider them to be acting nobly, or irresponsibly? Should seismologists not warn of earthquakes or tsunamis because of a potential conflict of interest??
There are many responses to how we could manage our changing climate. I am happy to read the research.
You know, maybe you should have read the research before posting. Just saying ...
In what way? By making less and less profits quarter over quarter as its only way to compete is by making their phones cheaper by continually decreasing the profit margins on their devices? Apple now gets 2/3rds of the global smartphone profits while HTC is now fighting amongst a half dozen other big companies for an ever shrinking pool of profits
I'm not so sure your logic holds here. What's the Android phone (almost) everyone wants? The Galaxy S II. What's the most expensive Android phone? The Galaxy S II. Who's making the most profits in the Android market right now? Samsung.
HTC had a great thing going with their early Android phones, but they've dropped the ball in terms of hardware this year. That's why they're not doing so well right now; it's nothing to do with Android.
By your logic, HP would have saved its PC division by getting itself a new OS and differentiating itself via software. Boy, if only they'd bought WebOS back in the day, how much better things would be for them now! Oh, wait ...
People don't give a fuck about hardware specs, just that its 'good enough', at that point software makes the difference. And the difference with Android is what? The amount of carrier mandated shit they put on your phone or how long it takes to jailbreak it .... err, root it.
If you think that, you've never met a sales person. If they have a customer looking at the cheapest, lowest-spec'ed Android phone, then they'll point out to the customer why it's absolutely vital that they have a phone with a dual core processor, and a bigger screen, and a higher resolution screen, and a higher resolution camera, and more storage space, and more RAM, and ...
I would argue that from a sales perspective, it's all about the hardware once you've convinced the customer that they want Android rather than iOS. As for any other OS ... well, have you seen how well Symbian, Bada, WP7, etc, are doing? Most app developers are going to write software for two OSes at most -- nothing else is going to get a look in. Just look at the number of apps Bada has right now. Or WebOS, for that matter ...
When they start using words like 'trick', trying to insult peoples' intelligence by telling them that it is a special scientific word and tacking data together that is unrelated to each other and measured in completely different ways I wonder why that would be?
Obviously it's all a conspiracy theory, so that a global UN government can arise and give victory to the communists! We tried to hide it, but you saw through it!!
Or, you know, you could read things in context and use your brain. It's a tough choice, sometimes ...
No, dude, some science is settled. In fact, a lot of it is. AGW isn't quite one of those things, but it is above the threshold of reasonable denial, until a mountain of evidence appears to overturn it. Until then, there is only unreasonable denial.
Very well said :)
This is the problem that I have with climate change scientists and proponents. While we cannot be averse to the notion that what we do affects our own climate, the question is how and by how much? Despite all protestations to the contrary that evidence is simply not there, and when you question it the above is a classic example of what the discussion boils down to - surely if we are doing something then it must have an effect.
You appear to be ignorant of (a) all research into atmospheric feedbacks and forcings and (b) all research into climate modelling. There's a substantial body of work out there (hint: Google Scholar is your friend) ... perhaps you should read some of it. As for the question of how and how much, the IPCC report has a good summary of multi-model predictions, which in turn was based on Tebaldi et al., 2004, Greene et al., 2006 and Furrer et al., 2007 ...
Currently, we know that the earth is warming, and warming substantially faster -- and to a greater extent -- than any time previously in the last 800,000 years. We know that CO2 can act as a forcing on global temperatures (and thanks to extensive research in the 50s and 60s we know this very accurately). We know that human activity has substantially increased the atmospheric concentration of CO2. We know that other GHGs can also act as forcings or feedbacks. We know that the temperature rises we are currently seeing fit extremely well with the prediction that current climate change is a result of human activity increasing the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere. Furthermore, we do not know of any other cause that could explain the temperature rise we are observing. We know that models based on research into atmospheric forcings accurately model current and past climates, and also predict a rapid and significant temperature increase if we continue to increase the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere.
The most parsimonious explanation by far, based on current research, is that increasing the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere has resulted in significant, rapid warming and will continue to cause significant, rapid warming.
2. Next you have to prove it will KEEP getting warmer, i.e. that it isn't a cyclical process at work. It has been much warmer than it is now in the not too distant past. The Romans grew grapes and exported wine from England when they ruled there.
Do you have refs for the Romans exporting wine from England?? There's some evidence for a (very) few Roman vinyards in Britain, but I'm not aware of anyone who's demonstrated that the industry was extensive (or good) enough to export to the much larger wine producing regions elsewhere in the empire. In any case, if grapes are a proxy for climate change, then unfortunately for you Britain grows grapes in a much larger scale today.
I mean, really. If you're going to attempt to refute AGW, at least start with some more reliable and documented evidence. (Why is it that denialists never cite references? Hand-waving, apparently, overrules 100 years of scientific research ...)
I think I'd have to put a new ROM on entirely, and I don't like that much hastle, or the risk of screwing something up.
It's really not much of a hassle (providing you back up all user Apps+Data with Titanium and everything else with dedicated tools (SMS with SMS Backup and Restore from the market is the only thing I've ever backed up separately)) You can (and should) always do a nandroid backup before touching a thing, as you can then restore it if -- in the very worst case scenario -- you lose anything.
It's also quite amazing how much faster the Desire feels when you strip the hideous Sense bloatware off it! I still can't believe how much HTC undersold that phone by encumbering it with ghastly software ... And if you want to run Gingerbread on the Desire, using a non-HTC ROM is the only way to go. (Note that you can get Gingerbread + HTC Sense custom ROMs from XDA, if you happen to like Sense -- still way better than the official HTC ROMs!)
Anyway, good luck if you do decide to try it; otherwise, too bad about the unfreezable/unremovable bloatware ... :(
But even if that were true for software, it's not true, for example, in biopharm. It costs hundreds of millions, or even billions, to bring a drug to market.
Sure, like evergreening drug patents is an excellent way to bring drugs to the masses ...!
When big pharma spends more R&D money on evergreening than on new drug discovery (which is currently the case) then the patent system has problems. Big problems. I agree that we need pharma, and that drug design driven by pharma is vitally important as governments simply don't have the money. But the patent system as it applies to pharma is still rotten to the core.
Interesting how YMMV. I see tablets (iPad 99% of the time) everywhere. Not so much in business/school situations (as you say a netbook/laptop is better for that), but definitely lots of tablets on the bus/train. Also they are becoming ubiquitous on flights (particularly in planes without seat-back IVRs ... lotta people pull out their iPad to pass the time).
Interesting, as I'm also in Australia (in Melbourne) and I've seen precious few tablets around in any form. On trains and trams, I still see heaps of laptops; whereas the number of tabs I've seen since I got back here from overseas a month ago I can count on the fingers of one hand. My impression is that most people are using their smartphones for the types of things you'd do with tablets -- I often spend my train ride surfing the net, and many people around me are doing exactly the same.
I haven't seen anyone using a table at a cafe since I've been back (the closest was seeing a dude with a tablet at the restaurant I went to last night, although he didn't use it once the entire time and it mostly seemed to serve the purpose of mopping up sauce ... :)
The big change I've noticed over the last six months is the big increase in the numbers of android phones (despite Oz being rather late to the party as regards androids, and seriously overcharging as always.) With 4.3" phone screens, the need for a separate tablet becomes significantly less, I think ...
... with an HTC Desire?? There are better ways to root (as the actress said) ... try unrEVOked, for starters.
In any case, if you've got root and a custom recovery, just nuke the ROM and throw CM7 on it ... you'll get rid of all the malware. You can even (in the best-kept secret of CM7) disable particular permissions for whatever software you like: don't like them having the internet? Just disable that permission! Works like a charm, and certainly makes me feel a lot safer about installing software like Swype.
I see a few people using them on the train or waiting at stops, always reading or surfing (I've never, ever seen anyone type text on a tablet in public!) In my experience there are far fewer people using tablets on PT than using laptops on PT, but they're definitely out there. (Most people that I see on PT are using smartphones for casual websurfing -- not surprising as they're much smaller and lighter, but not significantly less functional ...)
Personally, I can't see the need for a tablet in my life right now -- I'd quite happily buy the asus eeepad transformer if I could justify it (which at $350 is one of the best equipped and also one of the cheapest tablets out there), but I can't honestly see where I'd use it. I have a smartphone for casual surfing, a kindle for reading and a netbook for actually doing work on. There's no place that a tablet would fit in.
Well (assuming we're limited to IT hardware here, since anything else would be way too easy) communication devices and communication protocols -- mobile phones and Wifi -- are the big ones in the last 20 years. Way, way more important and innovative than a device that's a rectangle with rounded corners.
Going back further than 20 years: flash memory, LEDs, LCD displays are all standout examples of hardware innovation.
The iPad, on the other hand, was the evolution of a long-standing concept. The product itself was neither the first tablet computer, the first handheld computer or the first device with a touchscreen. Even in terms of design within Apple, the thing is simply a very big iPod touch! I'd love to know exactly why you believe it to be the standout example of innovation in the last 20 years.
You need to think outside the box a bit (or in this case, the rectangle-with-rounded-corners) ...
Actually, if you look on XDA there'll be instructions for most devices on how to flash back to stock with a broken screen (timing, numbers of keypresses, etc). And if your USB port is screwed, you can still flash back through the SD card (which is the standard method, anyway) ...
It's pretty difficult to be in a situation where you can't flash back to stock (not impossible, but very difficult) ...
Maybe so, but as root you can disable any or all the crap/bloat/malware you want with no penalty (I've often done so on my Desire). Just use Titanium or a similar app, or you can even do it from the commandline by calling 'pm disable ...'
It's essentially the same thing as deleting the package, but it's a lot safer!
Um, yes. Possibly you are too young to remember six or so years ago (!?), but Windows Mobile was at the time a VERY successful platform.
The iPhone cratered it, because Microsoft sat on the platform for too long without real improvement and as a software base it totally sucked and could not evolve. But Microsoft has history of prior success in the mobile space and a TON of corporate relationships that, while dusty, could come back to be of use.
Er, no. Sadly, I'm not too young to remember six years ago -- on the contrary, I used PDAs and smartphones all through that period and I remember it very well. Being as kind to you as I can, I think you're probably referring to Wince PDAs, when between the end of 2004 and the start of 2007 they took over the dying PDA (non-phone) market. Unfortunately for MS, by 2004 Q4 the non-phone PDA market had essentially peaked, and was being taken over by smartphones.
And in the phone market (which is what we're talking about here), Windows Mobile was always miles behind Symbian, and then RIM, Apple and now Android OSes -- with a maximum market share of 23% in 2004 Q1, falling now to 2% with WP7 in 2011 Q2. (See this ref for Wince's peak market share, and then wikipedia lists Gartner's market share stats from 2007 onwards; unfortunately, I can't find any Gartner stats for smartphones before '07 ...)
History tells us that Windows on phones has been one long history of decline from a not-very-high peak. As I've said, if MS belatedly succeeds in this market, it'll be in spite of what's happened in the past. Actually, it'd be a first, despite trying to crack into it for more than seven years ...
Feel free to cite contrary refs to support your claim of "VERY successful" if you can ...
One of us is ignoring history.
Hint: I've been paying attention.
What? You mean, like Microsoft's previous successful forays into the mobile world??
If MS is successful with WP7, it will be in spite of history, not because of it ...
Vale Palm :( I still have a IIIx from 1999, and a TE from 2003; sometimes I boot them up and am still amazed at the speed of those things, with almost all software opening instantly -- Palm got portables back in the day so much better than anyone else, and I sometimes feel that tech still hasn't caught back up to where we were a decade ago. You shouldn't need 1GHz processors to do the same things Palm was doing with a 16MHz Dragonball ...
Personally, I feel that the failure to release Cobalt (not on time, not late, not ever) was the death of Palm. Oh, and also all the craziness around the Flopeo in Palm's final death-throws, which was every bit as disastrous as HP's TouchPad fiasco. It's incredible, really -- Palm had the market at their feet, and lost it all.
Um, how about the blog post from Google's android dev team, It's not rooting, it's openness, that not only explains exactly how to root their flagship Nexus S phone (hint: with one adb command), but encourages it. Allow me to quote -- and remember, this is Google's official line:
The Nexus S, like the Nexus One before it, is designed to allow enthusiasts to install custom operating systems. Allowing your own boot image on a pure Nexus S is as simple as running fastboot oem unlock. It should be no surprise that modifying the operating system can give you root access to your phone. Hopefully that’s just the beginning of the changes you might make.
That's a pretty damn strong confirmation that Google supports open bootloaders, such as what HTC is now belatedly doing.
Well, no -- it's not a submission problem, it's an editorial problem.
Trolls will always submit FUD like this stupid, ignorant, misinformed article. But why /. editors let it through (especially unedited, with that ridiculous last sentence) is beyond me ...
Apple didn't fear Android in the phone space a few years ago, and how's that worked out for them?