They say you always have a special place in your heart for your first love. And maybe for your first computer too. And mine was a BBC Micro.
But it is indeed a contrast. The BBC ran a "computer literacy project" at a time when it was thought that being computer literate meant being able to program one to meet your needs. That concept didn't last long. Maybe a year or so. "The Computer Programme" which had programming as a central component was soon replaced with "Micro Live", which was more about what you could do with your computer using software that you didn't write. Word processors, spreadsheets, databases etc.
And that mirrored general consumer usage of computers. Programming as an end user activity for home computers was fundamental in the late 70s and early 80s, then declined right through the 80s, till it became extremely rare in the 90s. You could see the same trend in computer magazines that started with listings forming a majority of their content, and gradually the listings fizzled out - Some years before the cover disks of pre-written software came along. And the change in evening classes from "computer programming" to "IT".
For most people computers are just a tool. They don't need to know how it works.
As to the idea that iPads are "passive consumer" devices, or as others suggest "content consuming devices", rather than "content creating devices", I think it's nonsense. Look at the text books they are replacing. Ar they ever described as "passive consumer" items or "content consuming" items? No. Books are glorified as what intelligent people should have spent a lot of time with. Yet they are far more limited than iPads.
And then there's the thousands of educational apps for every topic under the sun. Interactive learning. The iPad is perfect for this stuff. Far better than a traditional computer. Direct manipulation rather than the indirect manipulation of keyboard or mouse makes for a much more engaging learning experience.
I loved my BBC Micro, and it was the best computer for kids to learn with in the early 1980s. But times have changed, and the iPad is the best one now.
Since the advent of computer counting, and increasingly good mental counting, the casinos introduced ever larger shoes, and increased the frequency of shuffling, making the opportunity to count vanishingly small.
And if you do manage it, they will ban you from the casino regardless of whether it is computer aided or pure skill. Probably after searching you first. Nothing suspicious about the smartphone the find, but the necessary i/o devices don't look at all innocent.
There's a need to enter casinos if you want to play casino games. There's a need to enter an airport if you want to fly. There is no difference, except the subjective one of your preferred activities.
And of course, competent testing would have found that problem.
Beyond the internal testing they did, betas of iOS7 were available to all iOS developers for 3 months. And there are literally hundreds of thousands of registered iOS developers.
And yet this issue has only come out 2 weeks after general release of the OS.
It's pretty obviously something that only affects a small number of people. And hasn't come up as a significant issue in testing. But now it has come up, it will doubtless become an option in some future software release.
If it was on any other OS it probably wouldn't even have become news. But all things Apple are news, because it's good for click-baiting.
Hence these animation features and such are all by default turned 'on' and not easily disabled.
They are turned on by default because:
1) The default probably should be the one that the developer believe is usually best for most users. And that's generally the latest, as they are striving to move forwards, not backwards. 2) For visual changes, the default tends to be the one that shows off the new visuals. So the user knows it's there. So reviewers use it, and have it in their screenshots.
They are not always optional because:
1) Having an option to turn functionality off has a cost. Both to u/x - the extra control needed to turn something off. And to reliability - two different branches of functionality need to exist concurrently in code, and to be tested.
2) Not every piece of functionality is introduced all at once. Often options are only introduced if there's a demonstrated and popular need. Now there's a accessibility issue with these animations, there will likely be an option introduced, in the accessibility section, to switch them off, in a future release. (Apple OSs are second to none in their accessibility features.)
As to your general comments on U/X, it is of course more of an art than a science. But then most things that involve creating things are. The underlying assumption that science = good, art = bad is not a good one.
Insurance companies are always looking for an excuse to raise rates.
They don't need "an excuse". If they want to raise the premiums they can.
But the insurance industry has extremely keen competition. Anyone raising the price much above what others can offer it for will lose business. Anyone undercutting the real risk will go bankrupt.
Insurance companies have always been the best estimators of risk. They have to be.
Right. So the TSA are x-raying and groping passengers, meanwhile the gates are open for anyone who wants to go joy-riding on the runway. Seems inconsistent.
It's plenty big enough an airport that it should be completely surrounded by a fence, with vehicle access only to those with passes or keys.
If two unauthorised automobiles have driven this route recently, it's the airport's fuck up for not having suitable barriers.
And if you look closely, the BBC photo of the Apple Maps route starts on a Taxiway in between 2 runways. If you're starting there, you HAVE to drive on the taxiways, both of which cross one runway or the other. But non-airport vehicles wouldn't be starting there.
"What makes it highly unbelievable is none of that. It is the reputation of Apple that makes it unbelievable. They aren't about to sacrifice a reputation it took them more than 30 years to build, especially for essentially no gain. If it was an unknown company I'd say maybe they were lying about how the fingerprint scanner works. But this is Apple we are talking about here."
Oh really. So how do you imagine you copy a capacitative image on a photocopier?
Touch ID isn't a visual scanner augmented by a capacitative test for the presence of something with a similar capacitance to a finger. It's a capacitative scanner. Until there is such a thing as a capacitative copier, photocopying ain't going to work. Regardless of what finger like substrate you use.
That pattern happens to be the fingerprint, which can also be read with a photo scanner (epidermal and sub-epidermal tissues have the same pattern).
Only in part. As pointed out where, the capacitative image will include other features such as blood vessels, which the photographic scan can't.
So, if you can get a high-quality photocopy of the print, you can reproduce the pattern the capacitive scanner reads.
So, for the sake of argument, you can get a near visual equivalent of the capacitative image. Now how do you make that visual image readable on a capacitative scanner? Ah yes, major flaw there.
Photocopiers do visual images, both input and output. It seems unlikely they are much good for replicating capacitative images - for two reasons (input and output).
Yes, Apple has been confirmed lying due to a gelatin finger being able to program the TouchID sensor to begin with. No blood vessels, well below the temperature of a human body, and certainly no pulse.
Either you don't understand the concept that "capacitative" doesn't deal with what's on the surface, or you missed the fact that there was a real living finger behind that thin film of gelatin or latex or whatever it was.
I'm not terribly surprised that you can program the scanner with a latex of latex on your finger, then get it to verify that same finger.
The trick in the video, if it is a hoax, is that more than one finger can be trained.
Yes it was an interesting episode of Mythbusters. SEVEN years ago.
Capacitative finger print scanners are a bit more of a challenge. And the included video doesn't prove it's been defeated yet. As photocopiers don't tend to deal in capacitative imaging, neither input nor output, I'm dubious.
It's a capacitative scanner. Whether you like it or not, that's not imaging the surface layer of skin, but the complexity of what's behind it. And yes that includes blood vessels.
It's far easier to see how the video in the TFA could be faked than a capacitative image of a finger could be.
It's a capacitative scanner. It's not a photo scanner. So the fact that the claimed hack revolves around a photocopy makes it distinctly dubious. And the included video certainly doesn't prove the claim.
But it's interesting that you are more willing to trust an anonymous hacker than a blue chip company.
Slashdot Mirror
They say you always have a special place in your heart for your first love. And maybe for your first computer too. And mine was a BBC Micro.
But it is indeed a contrast. The BBC ran a "computer literacy project" at a time when it was thought that being computer literate meant being able to program one to meet your needs. That concept didn't last long. Maybe a year or so. "The Computer Programme" which had programming as a central component was soon replaced with "Micro Live", which was more about what you could do with your computer using software that you didn't write. Word processors, spreadsheets, databases etc.
And that mirrored general consumer usage of computers. Programming as an end user activity for home computers was fundamental in the late 70s and early 80s, then declined right through the 80s, till it became extremely rare in the 90s. You could see the same trend in computer magazines that started with listings forming a majority of their content, and gradually the listings fizzled out - Some years before the cover disks of pre-written software came along. And the change in evening classes from "computer programming" to "IT".
For most people computers are just a tool. They don't need to know how it works.
As to the idea that iPads are "passive consumer" devices, or as others suggest "content consuming devices", rather than "content creating devices", I think it's nonsense. Look at the text books they are replacing. Ar they ever described as "passive consumer" items or "content consuming" items? No. Books are glorified as what intelligent people should have spent a lot of time with. Yet they are far more limited than iPads.
And then there's the thousands of educational apps for every topic under the sun. Interactive learning. The iPad is perfect for this stuff. Far better than a traditional computer. Direct manipulation rather than the indirect manipulation of keyboard or mouse makes for a much more engaging learning experience.
I loved my BBC Micro, and it was the best computer for kids to learn with in the early 1980s. But times have changed, and the iPad is the best one now.
You win too often.
Since the advent of computer counting, and increasingly good mental counting, the casinos introduced ever larger shoes, and increased the frequency of shuffling, making the opportunity to count vanishingly small.
And if you do manage it, they will ban you from the casino regardless of whether it is computer aided or pure skill. Probably after searching you first. Nothing suspicious about the smartphone the find, but the necessary i/o devices don't look at all innocent.
There's a need to enter casinos if you want to play casino games. There's a need to enter an airport if you want to fly. There is no difference, except the subjective one of your preferred activities.
One could quote Martin NiemÃller.
And of course, competent testing would have found that problem.
Beyond the internal testing they did, betas of iOS7 were available to all iOS developers for 3 months. And there are literally hundreds of thousands of registered iOS developers.
And yet this issue has only come out 2 weeks after general release of the OS.
It's pretty obviously something that only affects a small number of people. And hasn't come up as a significant issue in testing. But now it has come up, it will doubtless become an option in some future software release.
If it was on any other OS it probably wouldn't even have become news. But all things Apple are news, because it's good for click-baiting.
Hence these animation features and such are all by default turned 'on' and not easily disabled.
They are turned on by default because:
1) The default probably should be the one that the developer believe is usually best for most users. And that's generally the latest, as they are striving to move forwards, not backwards.
2) For visual changes, the default tends to be the one that shows off the new visuals. So the user knows it's there. So reviewers use it, and have it in their screenshots.
They are not always optional because:
1) Having an option to turn functionality off has a cost. Both to u/x - the extra control needed to turn something off. And to reliability - two different branches of functionality need to exist concurrently in code, and to be tested.
2) Not every piece of functionality is introduced all at once. Often options are only introduced if there's a demonstrated and popular need. Now there's a accessibility issue with these animations, there will likely be an option introduced, in the accessibility section, to switch them off, in a future release. (Apple OSs are second to none in their accessibility features.)
As to your general comments on U/X, it is of course more of an art than a science. But then most things that involve creating things are. The underlying assumption that science = good, art = bad is not a good one.
Let's say I send a letter to a friend, and he shows it to his wife. Where is my knowledge and consent?
That's not a man in the middle though.
To make them the same, it'd have to be the mailman reading the letter before your friend.
Or alternatively it'd have to be your friend forwarding the mail to Google's ad server after he's read it.
Insurance companies are always looking for an excuse to raise rates.
They don't need "an excuse". If they want to raise the premiums they can.
But the insurance industry has extremely keen competition. Anyone raising the price much above what others can offer it for will lose business. Anyone undercutting the real risk will go bankrupt.
Insurance companies have always been the best estimators of risk. They have to be.
Right. So the TSA are x-raying and groping passengers, meanwhile the gates are open for anyone who wants to go joy-riding on the runway. Seems inconsistent.
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=fairbanks+alaska&safe=strict&client=safari&ie=UTF-8&hl=en
It's plenty big enough an airport that it should be completely surrounded by a fence, with vehicle access only to those with passes or keys.
If two unauthorised automobiles have driven this route recently, it's the airport's fuck up for not having suitable barriers.
And if you look closely, the BBC photo of the Apple Maps route starts on a Taxiway in between 2 runways. If you're starting there, you HAVE to drive on the taxiways, both of which cross one runway or the other. But non-airport vehicles wouldn't be starting there.
Incorrect. That's how years old fingerprint scanners worked. This is a more recent technology.
How do you imagine a visual image of the finger is being taken through an opaque "lens" of the home button and without illumination.
It's not. It's a capacitative image.
Why don't you read how he did it and build up your own mind how plausible that is?
I did. And the answer is "not at all".
Still content free I see. Goodbye troll.
"What makes it highly unbelievable is none of that. It is the reputation of Apple that makes it unbelievable. They aren't about to sacrifice a reputation it took them more than 30 years to build, especially for essentially no gain. If it was an unknown company I'd say maybe they were lying about how the fingerprint scanner works. But this is Apple we are talking about here."
...7 years ago.
That's a long time in technology.
But they haven't.
Claims like yours are why one doesn't automatically believe what you read on the internet.
Oh really. So how do you imagine you copy a capacitative image on a photocopier?
Touch ID isn't a visual scanner augmented by a capacitative test for the presence of something with a similar capacitance to a finger. It's a capacitative scanner. Until there is such a thing as a capacitative copier, photocopying ain't going to work. Regardless of what finger like substrate you use.
And yet you provide no argument for that.
Anonymous hacker? The summary clearly states it was hacked by guys and girls from the CCC.
And the name/names of those people making the claim are?
You forget the fact that the CCC used milk and latex to simulate human skin, to trick the capacitors.
And how exactly is the capacitative image of the finger copied? Hint: photocopiers don't copy capacitative images. Neither input nor output.
A very old technique btw.
...For photographic fingerprint scanners.
Some people seem to think that tricks that worked on Mythbusters 7 years ago work on entirely different technology today.
That pattern happens to be the fingerprint, which can also be read with a photo scanner (epidermal and sub-epidermal tissues have the same pattern).
Only in part. As pointed out where, the capacitative image will include other features such as blood vessels, which the photographic scan can't.
So, if you can get a high-quality photocopy of the print, you can reproduce the pattern the capacitive scanner reads.
So, for the sake of argument, you can get a near visual equivalent of the capacitative image. Now how do you make that visual image readable on a capacitative scanner? Ah yes, major flaw there.
Photocopiers do visual images, both input and output. It seems unlikely they are much good for replicating capacitative images - for two reasons (input and output).
"cyber-vandal". What a wonderfully appropriate user name to go with your world-view.
Yes, Apple has been confirmed lying due to a gelatin finger being able to program the TouchID sensor to begin with. No blood vessels, well below the temperature of a human body, and certainly no pulse.
Either you don't understand the concept that "capacitative" doesn't deal with what's on the surface, or you missed the fact that there was a real living finger behind that thin film of gelatin or latex or whatever it was.
I'm not terribly surprised that you can program the scanner with a latex of latex on your finger, then get it to verify that same finger.
The trick in the video, if it is a hoax, is that more than one finger can be trained.
Yes it was an interesting episode of Mythbusters. SEVEN years ago.
Capacitative finger print scanners are a bit more of a challenge. And the included video doesn't prove it's been defeated yet. As photocopiers don't tend to deal in capacitative imaging, neither input nor output, I'm dubious.
But I await confirmation one way or the other.
It's a capacitative scanner. Whether you like it or not, that's not imaging the surface layer of skin, but the complexity of what's behind it. And yes that includes blood vessels.
It's far easier to see how the video in the TFA could be faked than a capacitative image of a finger could be.
It's a capacitative scanner. It's not a photo scanner. So the fact that the claimed hack revolves around a photocopy makes it distinctly dubious. And the included video certainly doesn't prove the claim.
But it's interesting that you are more willing to trust an anonymous hacker than a blue chip company.
Me, I'll avait confirmation one way or the other.