email her a link to a google map of that precise location, then.
On that basis we don't need domain names either. Just email people IP addresses.
The vast majority of humans don't speak english well
And there's nothing special about English in this system. If someone is conversing to you in French they'll go to the French version of the website and use 3 French words. The addresses are only as portable as the language used to express them, but in practice that's not much of a drawback. Even less so than with domain names.
Lat/long is like an IP address. Does the job but very unmemorable for humans.
This idea is like a domain name. With all possible locations on earth pre-seeded with 3 random words, and the possibility to buy a single word version of your choice.
If you don't like it don't use it. But if it caught on it might be quite useful. And it's a clever business model.
No amount of frakking nor drilling adds any energy to the system. All the energy in the system was put there by geology, and all of that energy will be released via some earthquake. You might change the timing (or location), but you'll have no effect on the total energy released over time.
Removing random bricks from a building adds no energy to the system either. And after all, the building can't last forever, right? So you might as well remove bricks so the building falls down gradually and save a disaster. Heck, if you plan it just right, you could plan to take just the right bricks out so that the building falls down in a controlled manner.
People say that removing bricks from buildings make them fall down. But they are fools. It's gravity acting on the potential energy put there by construction that makes the buildings fall down, so clearly there's nothing wrong with removing bricks.
Whenever an analyst produces a dishonest research report, look to the company that benefited from the dishonesty for the source of funding of the report.
Apple too might benefit from a shared architecture between the desktop and phone
It'd have to be a hell of a lot more than a "might benefit" for them to do it. It'd have to be the inability of one of the platforms to support future requirements in their existing niche. Which is a very far distant prospect in each case.
I suspect as their circulation was shrinking, the power of the advertisers became stronger, and it may even have been that the front page was paid for by the featured beige box manufacturer.
It is such as shame, as back in it's glory days, every front cover was a work of art, either illustrated, or artful photography.
"IBM PC" was derived from "PC", not the other way around. It was originally assigned to things like Commodore machines and Macs.
The term Personal Computer was certainly used before the IBM PC. Alongside Home Computer and Microcomputer. Indeed Personal Computer was written on the front of the Commodore PET. But the abbreviation PC, not so much. And after the IBM PC was almost always used exclusively for machines compatible with that architecture and it's derivatives. As for Macs, they were usually contrasted with PCs, rather than being included under the term. And that's only really changed with the Intel Macs that can indeed run X86 Windows natively.
And if everyone transitions over to ARM for some reason they won't stop being personal computers.
Ain't that the truth. The glory days were certainly the early 80s, when all varied home computers were being released. I treasured the copies with the first reviews of the ZX80, ZX81 and the BBC Micro and so on. Very sad when I had to part with them.
Android is a phone for ordinary consumers. 13 year old girls, middle aged builders, grandparents, everybody. Do they all know that "Full Network Access" is a clue that it might be a scam app?
1) The PC has been around now for over 20 years. It no longer possesses excitement and consumer appeal.
Did it ever? Were people really ever excited about another beige or black box? From time to time people had to buy them because their old one wasn't quick enough for the latest software. But excited? Not so much. Geeks were, but not ordinary consumers, not so much.
OK, I'm overstating it. When PC were new, back in the early 80s, a beige box could be very exciting. But the last couple of decades? Not so much.
If anything, Mac boxes are even less configurable to individual tastes than Windows machines.
Which is indeed thinking different. And better. Worse than Windows though is the stupid extent of configurability of OSS software.
Take VLC for example. There's a vast number of options for how to display subtitles, most of them incomprehensible. Having subtitles switched off by default isn't one of them. There are entire blog posts devoted to the combination of obscure settings that you have to do to switch off subtitles by default.
No software originating on the Mac would have such a fundamental problem. Subtitles options would be a a small, manageable number, all of them understandable by people who weren't the developers of the app, and switching subtitles off and on would be obvious.
PC stands for 'personal computer', at least it did.
As far as I'm concerned PC derives from IBM PC. It's a PC if it's an IBM PC, a clone, or one of it's descendants. So it's CPU will be in on of the x86 compatible descendants. And it's firmware will be BIOS, or one of it's descendants such as UEFI (that emulates BIOS for compatibility.)
The rule of thumb is that a PC is a machine that can run the x86 build of DOS and/or Windows natively.
ARM based tablets are not PCs. iPad is not a PC. Android tablets aren't PCs. The Microsoft Surface that runs Windows RT isn't a PC. The one that runs Windows 8 is a PC.
Are you new here? This is a website full of "casual tinkerers" for whom the ability to screw around with their phone is, well, rather important.
Some are casual tinkerers. Some are professional developers. I've been here over a decade, and I have no difficulty in creating apps for iOS. $99 not being a barrier for entry for me at all.
I'm a slashdotter and I see no reason why a platform should be compromised to appeal to casual tinkerers.
And lowering the "modest barriers to entry" would also allow people to run apps that Apple currently forbids, such as Firefox or emulators or VLC - all currently forbidden by Apple.
Users benefit from there being a single HTML rendering engine for iOS. Every web site that has been designed for mobile, works perfectly, because they've all been designed primarily for webkit. There's no fragmentation or incompatibility problems, everything just works.
VLC is not at all forbidden by Apple. Indeed it was on the store until one of the VLC developers (who worked for Nokia) decided to say it couldn't be on the App Store, because in his opinion the license they chose was incompatible with the App Store. Anyone can put a media player on the app store. It's not against the rules. Neither is the GPL against the rules. The GPL community objects to the App Store, not the other way around.
Having said all that, not having VLC on iOS is no loss. It's presence on desktop computers means that some videos are encoded in formats that are not playable on the built in players and only in VLC. For that reason I have VLC on my Mac. And apart from it giving access to files that wouldn't otherwise play, I hate it. It's got so many examples of what a UI shouldn't be like.
iOS users benefit from video files encoded for mobile being playable on the built in player.
Not if you knew the app in question, which I can't really get into, because it was never released as it was basically only used internally. It was effectively a web page, but done using UIKit instead of HTML and CSS. There are plenty of instances where doing a crossplatform HTML/CSS app make far more sense than creating native apps for multiple platforms. This was one of them.
For sure there are cases, especially for in house apps, where a webapp makes more sense than developing native apps. On a cost/benefit analysis. But let's not pretend it's actually a better app. There are plenty of things that a native app can do that a web app can't. There's nothing a web app can do that a native app can't.
When you install the new Angry Birds game and it says that it wants permission to "make phone calls", if you click "okay" you are a moron.
Android phones are not for morons.
But they absolutely are. Their market share is based on selling to the lowest common denominator. They are sold to people that just want a phone, and know no more and no less than the average person about computing. i.e. Very little.
The fundamental problem with Android security is that few of their users will check the permissions list when installing, and know what is acceptable and what is not. They'll just accept it, regardless.
I'll hand it to you, Apple does target the herp-derp crowd who need hand holding, which is fine.
Apple knows it's targeting ordinary people. Android's design shows their developers don't realise they are too.
You claiming that Android users aren't morons, as an excuse for poor security, just shows how empty your fanboyism is.
Apple have LOTS of restrictions on what apps can do with telephony. Android has LOTS of malware. Fundamental difference between a platform that protects the user and one that's a malware-writer's playground.
Now, if Android has a call blocking white/black list built in to the system software, then that's a good thing. If it's open to developers - oops!
It sure is. It's pretty common practice in the industry.
I imagine it dates back to CD pressing days, and either the gold colour of the master disks from which CDs are pressed. Or simply the gold colour of early CD/Rs which would have been used to send the final disk image to the pressing company.
Existing versions of iOS could pair with headphones, and OBD-II dongles.
But this story is about iOS 7, and iOS7 can do lots more with Bluetooth than before. At the consumer level the new features are known as AirDrop and iBeacons. For developers it's Core Bluetooth.
The problem with iCloud is that you can't install apps remotely. This means if say you lose your phone and don't have a tracking app installed you are screwed. On Android you can just install something like Plan B and a few minutes later you get can email with the device's location.
So what you're saying is that if your Google Play account is compromised (hacker or government warrant), then a someone else can download, install and run software on your phone, without any physical access to it? Ouch!
iOS doesn't need any lost phone tracking software, it's built in. Of course it must be enabled first, because otherwise it would be nearly as vulnerable to privacy violation as the Android system you describe.
Slashdot Mirror
email her a link to a google map of that precise location, then.
On that basis we don't need domain names either. Just email people IP addresses.
The vast majority of humans don't speak english well
And there's nothing special about English in this system. If someone is conversing to you in French they'll go to the French version of the website and use 3 French words. The addresses are only as portable as the language used to express them, but in practice that's not much of a drawback. Even less so than with domain names.
Lat/long is like an IP address. Does the job but very unmemorable for humans.
This idea is like a domain name. With all possible locations on earth pre-seeded with 3 random words, and the possibility to buy a single word version of your choice.
If you don't like it don't use it. But if it caught on it might be quite useful. And it's a clever business model.
Google just gives me a load of Android advertising for that search term. Perhaps you meant Bob.
Who's Bill?
No amount of frakking nor drilling adds any energy to the system. All the energy in the system was put there by geology, and all of that energy will be released via some earthquake. You might change the timing (or location), but you'll have no effect on the total energy released over time.
Removing random bricks from a building adds no energy to the system either. And after all, the building can't last forever, right? So you might as well remove bricks so the building falls down gradually and save a disaster. Heck, if you plan it just right, you could plan to take just the right bricks out so that the building falls down in a controlled manner.
People say that removing bricks from buildings make them fall down. But they are fools. It's gravity acting on the potential energy put there by construction that makes the buildings fall down, so clearly there's nothing wrong with removing bricks.
Whenever an analyst produces a dishonest research report, look to the company that benefited from the dishonesty for the source of funding of the report.
Apple too might benefit from a shared architecture between the desktop and phone
It'd have to be a hell of a lot more than a "might benefit" for them to do it. It'd have to be the inability of one of the platforms to support future requirements in their existing niche. Which is a very far distant prospect in each case.
I suspect as their circulation was shrinking, the power of the advertisers became stronger, and it may even have been that the front page was paid for by the featured beige box manufacturer.
It is such as shame, as back in it's glory days, every front cover was a work of art, either illustrated, or artful photography.
"IBM PC" was derived from "PC", not the other way around. It was originally assigned to things like Commodore machines and Macs.
The term Personal Computer was certainly used before the IBM PC. Alongside Home Computer and Microcomputer. Indeed Personal Computer was written on the front of the Commodore PET. But the abbreviation PC, not so much. And after the IBM PC was almost always used exclusively for machines compatible with that architecture and it's derivatives. As for Macs, they were usually contrasted with PCs, rather than being included under the term. And that's only really changed with the Intel Macs that can indeed run X86 Windows natively.
And if everyone transitions over to ARM for some reason they won't stop being personal computers.
If you like. But IMO they won't be PCs.
Ain't that the truth. The glory days were certainly the early 80s, when all varied home computers were being released. I treasured the copies with the first reviews of the ZX80, ZX81 and the BBC Micro and so on. Very sad when I had to part with them.
Guess you've never been to a cremation. At least not one in the western world.
Another nail in the PC coffin. Wake me when it's time to spread the ashes.
Not to be confused with Personal Computer World, or PCW. The earliest and best UK computer magazine, that already died in 2009.
Android is a phone for ordinary consumers. 13 year old girls, middle aged builders, grandparents, everybody. Do they all know that "Full Network Access" is a clue that it might be a scam app?
1) The PC has been around now for over 20 years. It no longer possesses excitement and consumer appeal.
Did it ever? Were people really ever excited about another beige or black box? From time to time people had to buy them because their old one wasn't quick enough for the latest software. But excited? Not so much. Geeks were, but not ordinary consumers, not so much.
OK, I'm overstating it. When PC were new, back in the early 80s, a beige box could be very exciting. But the last couple of decades? Not so much.
If anything, Mac boxes are even less configurable to individual tastes than Windows machines.
Which is indeed thinking different. And better. Worse than Windows though is the stupid extent of configurability of OSS software.
Take VLC for example. There's a vast number of options for how to display subtitles, most of them incomprehensible. Having subtitles switched off by default isn't one of them. There are entire blog posts devoted to the combination of obscure settings that you have to do to switch off subtitles by default.
No software originating on the Mac would have such a fundamental problem. Subtitles options would be a a small, manageable number, all of them understandable by people who weren't the developers of the app, and switching subtitles off and on would be obvious.
PC stands for 'personal computer', at least it did.
As far as I'm concerned PC derives from IBM PC. It's a PC if it's an IBM PC, a clone, or one of it's descendants. So it's CPU will be in on of the x86 compatible descendants. And it's firmware will be BIOS, or one of it's descendants such as UEFI (that emulates BIOS for compatibility.)
The rule of thumb is that a PC is a machine that can run the x86 build of DOS and/or Windows natively.
ARM based tablets are not PCs. iPad is not a PC. Android tablets aren't PCs. The Microsoft Surface that runs Windows RT isn't a PC. The one that runs Windows 8 is a PC.
Airdrop in iOS7 does this.
Are you new here? This is a website full of "casual tinkerers" for whom the ability to screw around with their phone is, well, rather important.
Some are casual tinkerers. Some are professional developers. I've been here over a decade, and I have no difficulty in creating apps for iOS. $99 not being a barrier for entry for me at all.
I'm a slashdotter and I see no reason why a platform should be compromised to appeal to casual tinkerers.
And lowering the "modest barriers to entry" would also allow people to run apps that Apple currently forbids, such as Firefox or emulators or VLC - all currently forbidden by Apple.
Users benefit from there being a single HTML rendering engine for iOS. Every web site that has been designed for mobile, works perfectly, because they've all been designed primarily for webkit. There's no fragmentation or incompatibility problems, everything just works.
VLC is not at all forbidden by Apple. Indeed it was on the store until one of the VLC developers (who worked for Nokia) decided to say it couldn't be on the App Store, because in his opinion the license they chose was incompatible with the App Store. Anyone can put a media player on the app store. It's not against the rules. Neither is the GPL against the rules. The GPL community objects to the App Store, not the other way around.
Having said all that, not having VLC on iOS is no loss. It's presence on desktop computers means that some videos are encoded in formats that are not playable on the built in players and only in VLC. For that reason I have VLC on my Mac. And apart from it giving access to files that wouldn't otherwise play, I hate it. It's got so many examples of what a UI shouldn't be like.
iOS users benefit from video files encoded for mobile being playable on the built in player.
Not if you knew the app in question, which I can't really get into, because it was never released as it was basically only used internally. It was effectively a web page, but done using UIKit instead of HTML and CSS.
There are plenty of instances where doing a crossplatform HTML/CSS app make far more sense than creating native apps for multiple platforms. This was one of them.
For sure there are cases, especially for in house apps, where a webapp makes more sense than developing native apps. On a cost/benefit analysis. But let's not pretend it's actually a better app. There are plenty of things that a native app can do that a web app can't. There's nothing a web app can do that a native app can't.
When you install the new Angry Birds game and it says that it wants permission to "make phone calls", if you click "okay" you are a moron.
Android phones are not for morons.
But they absolutely are. Their market share is based on selling to the lowest common denominator. They are sold to people that just want a phone, and know no more and no less than the average person about computing. i.e. Very little.
The fundamental problem with Android security is that few of their users will check the permissions list when installing, and know what is acceptable and what is not. They'll just accept it, regardless.
I'll hand it to you, Apple does target the herp-derp crowd who need hand holding, which is fine.
Apple knows it's targeting ordinary people. Android's design shows their developers don't realise they are too.
You claiming that Android users aren't morons, as an excuse for poor security, just shows how empty your fanboyism is.
Apple have LOTS of restrictions on what apps can do with telephony. Android has LOTS of malware. Fundamental difference between a platform that protects the user and one that's a malware-writer's playground.
Now, if Android has a call blocking white/black list built in to the system software, then that's a good thing. If it's open to developers - oops!
It sure is. It's pretty common practice in the industry.
I imagine it dates back to CD pressing days, and either the gold colour of the master disks from which CDs are pressed. Or simply the gold colour of early CD/Rs which would have been used to send the final disk image to the pressing company.
Existing versions of iOS could pair with headphones, and OBD-II dongles.
But this story is about iOS 7, and iOS7 can do lots more with Bluetooth than before. At the consumer level the new features are known as AirDrop and iBeacons. For developers it's Core Bluetooth.
The problem with iCloud is that you can't install apps remotely. This means if say you lose your phone and don't have a tracking app installed you are screwed. On Android you can just install something like Plan B and a few minutes later you get can email with the device's location.
So what you're saying is that if your Google Play account is compromised (hacker or government warrant), then a someone else can download, install and run software on your phone, without any physical access to it? Ouch!
iOS doesn't need any lost phone tracking software, it's built in. Of course it must be enabled first, because otherwise it would be nearly as vulnerable to privacy violation as the Android system you describe.
Really, only now you are getting this feature? Android has been able to do this for as long as I can remember, which is at least back to the 1.6 days.
That's odd, because it was only 3 months ago that some Google engineers were suggesting an idea for such a system.
http://bgr.com/2013/04/03/google-engineers-robocall-blocking-proposal-412166/
What we're talking about here is a blocked number list, not a robocall blocking system.