Haven't most reasonably-sized IT departments just spent the better part of a decade locking down office workstations so they can administer a common desktop, common applications, and impose security and authentication centrally? Do you think most IT departments want to give their users "freedom in the user experience?" I can't imagine a worse management problem than a device where each individual user goes shopping at the App Store for whatever makes them happy regardless of its fit with the business or whether IT can support it.
Yeah, I laughed at that too because the freedom with iPad is "Apple-freedom" which doesn't really allow choice in the user experince. But giving users choice with their tools isn't actually that bad according to studies I've read recently. Letting the user choose the cellphone and laptop / other equipment he/she likes can actually boost productivity instead of providing the standard one with approved centally-contolled desktop and applications. And competent it support can also handle it - it means a little bit of work on the support side but it can be a huge boost on the productivity side.
Of course assuming the end-user isn't a complete moron who just wants new gadgets because it's hip and cool and demands that everything must work on the new gizmo like it did with the old one. And that problem arises usually with those types that have too much power and too much incompetence and it support already has special (non-written, but everyone knows them) ways to deal with them because they are usually the "important people" who demand a shortcut anyway.
And yes, I own an iPad, it's a great tool for couch-surfing, games and things like that - I even bring it up with me on business trips because with it I don't have to worry about the battery life of my laptop for next days meeting and it is much nicer to hold when being bored at the hotel room bed in the evening and checking the news than a laptop. But I hardly imagine it could help me in my work - even if I want to read my work documents on the road after work-hours I have to resort to my laptop because getting the documents from svn/other systems I or our clients use on the iPad would be very hard and/or a security risk if it was allowed in a way iPad can support it. It is an innovative entertainment device, but not be-all solve-all solution.
The last two sentences on the summary are the most interesting ones. If you thought that the rate of growth of memory and processing power on standard home/office computers is out of hand just look at the supercomputers. These things are basicly old when delivered and their life is practically max. 3-5 years, after that nobody cares. And that is a pity considering how much these beasts cost and they are mostly funded with public (tax) money because running a business selling processor time from these things with their small lifetime would never be profitable.
Well, I would not call that reasonable yet - just barely not insanely expensive. And data is still the blind spot, nowadays you need data to do basicly anything with your phone; even receiving calls can require data - many people use caller-id services where an add-on app check the callers name from online database(s) if it is not on your addressbook. And data is still in the "insanely expensive" category when roaming. And I won't even start talking about Google maps, Spotify and others things people are used to on their cell phones - roaming data rates instantly brings you 10 years back in time (unless of course you have heaps of money to burn and don't care about the cost).
We Europeans often laugh at USA because receiving calls uses up minutes on the plan, but roaming charges are the embarassing thing for Europe. In a way I understand that - EU nations are still independent nations, many still with phone companies which are descendants of state-owned monopolies and they want to protect their turf and "when everybody is doing it" roaming is a good place to gouge consumers.
Israel security is serious security, and not theatre, because it concentrates on the passenger, and not their belongings.
I'd take the ink-cartridge ban any day over the Israeli security. The reason they have to do it is because they are practically constantly at war.
And USA is going that way fast, I (as a white, young male from Northern Europe) have to supply my personal information in advance to US government if I want to come there and so I'm already profiled - not just the way they do in Israel because they don't (yet) have the money to do so (because of the number of passengers coming to USA).
The day we have the "Israeli security" across the globe the terrorists have won. Big time. Maybe that day someone will think what the frack went wrong - or, there just will be TSA^2 that says "bend over" without saying "please" and people will obey.
I completely agree. The energy savings and other crap which DST supposedly do are completely negated by the extra work done every year to shift timetables of trains, airplanes and busses and the effort taken to keep every gadget in the world in compliance of changing DST rules across the globe.
What is wrong with waking up at 13:00 instead of 07:00? It is just numbers and when the sun rises in particular piece of earth should not be the basis for counting time - let alone shifting it back and forth two times a year.
Regarding the dock connector: Lots of hand-waving.
Yes, fees are not unique Apple is no saint here. They could have made interoperability easiear and cheaper but chose not to - because of business reasons. Be it control over image and who make what accessories or just plain greed to milk money over others - I don't know.
And I do realize that Amazon mp3 store would not necessarily have existed if iTMS wasn't the huge success it was/is. But on the other hand - Apple could have said "screw you guys, we are not selling drm-music" - instead they said that it is ok and music industry later on thought that just maybe competition would be nice and drm was one bargaining tool and game changed.
Technology or licenses is not the key here - being at the right place at the right time is. Look at Napster (the subscription one which came after the lawsuits) or Yahoo Music - they practically died and still Spotify (I live in Northern Europe so that is what is use but I have heard US has last.fm and other similar services) now grows.
What bothers me is that people keep saying that Apple is somehow open or embraces sharing - yes, they have their merits (the mention about OS X install is good, I'm sick and tired of Microsoft's WGA crap) but they really are no different when it actually comes to what makes them money. They close, limit and charge license fees just like anyone else.
I don't think any piece of Apple-provided evidence is going to convince you, but the history is right there.
Yeah, and you just proved it - the dock connector is fine if you just want analog audio out of it. If you want the fancy features there is a license fee to pay. And yes, there is a sort of drm there - I have seen a car adapter which worked just fine on previous generation iPod but connecting a new generation one shows just "incompatible device" warning on the iPod. And there is simply nothing that could have been changed to the actual functionality - just a missing license fee.
And you are right about Apple giving what customers want - unfortunately for me that is dumbed down restricted software in a nice and shiny package. But I'm ok with that - what I'm not ok is that you among others give Apple the credit of drm-free music which they do not deserve - we got that since Amazon and others came along and right holders relized that competition is good and drm-free distribution is one way to do that.
Apple does just what sells, today it might be drm-movies and series, tomorrow it might be something else. And they are good at it at least for couple of last years.
Well, I agree somewhat on the part of RMS, but not fully.
But you are wrong about FSF and Apple's OSS participation - yes, they have taken webkit (from KDE) and contributed to it. So has Nokia and about everyone else using it. You still don't get the crown jewels which in case of webkit is Safari as a whole with Javascript engine and all the bells and whistles. Bonjour is quite a mess, seen any 3. party implementations which actually work? QT server - the same, yes, they use established standards but close just enough to not to be useful. Darwin - yeah, who created what in the first place? CUPS - yes, there is some true credit to be given there, but given that 10 years ago Unix printing was a complete mess (at least if you wanted Windows-compatibility and easy configuring for cheap printers, PS and network printing has never been a problem) this is not a great accomplishment.
In the end - yes, some low-level developers might benefit from Apple's contributions. If the projects can be ported to non-Apple specific platforms. Apple is not really an Open Source company, they just take what is good out there - and there is nothing wrong with that, but admitting that you are not the holy Jesus of Open Source is the first step.
And don't make me start with Facetime - yeah, standards, nice buzzwords with mpeg and all. Except that the implementation is so borked up that cross-platform compatibility is almost impossible while there were existing methods for video calls, but no, Apple had to make their own and better system where no one else is allowed to come.
And no, Steve saying that it was the evil labels that made them do the drm doesn't count. Apple is still pro-DRM where it matters to them (apps, movies, books, even their own ipod-connector etc.). The plan for Apple is to make money, and competition will change the scenery by introducing alternatives. Hopefully.
Re:IBM PCs compared extremely poorly with Amigas
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The Amiga Turns 25
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Whilst I agree with everything you say, the Amiga OS was also an insecure hell. OK, as coders we got absolute control over everything, but had the Amiga 'won', the whole OS would have had to go through a total re-write to implement a whole lot of protection in order to prevent a gross malware bloom.
Well, virus situation was bad at some times but that was mostly due to very active piracy and copying floppies to trade games. It really wasn't worse than MS-DOS/Windows3.1 at the time - the only difference was that MS-DOS had less games and kids traded them less.
As for the absolute control - the lack of MMU on 68000 (A500, A1000) and the 68EC020 (A1200) meant that a rogue application could indeed crash the whole OS easily and while the OS had pre-emptive multitasking it had only little protection against ill-behaving processes on machines without MMU.
In other words it seems like if a network has issues, they will be amplified by the complexity of the phone.
Yes, this whole "dropped calls" issue seems to be very US specific. I don't know what is wrong with AT&T and other US carriers - here in Finland since NMT (old analog standard) times I have never, ever had a "dropped call" which wasn't an issue with dead battery or simply losing coverage eg. in a train going to a tunnel. Not even when traveling and skiing in the Alps where I can be in 3 countries in the same day a few kilometer apart I've had zero problems. I know that magazines still test the reception of the phones and it is all good - the function must not be sacrified to form or anything else. But it still puzzles me that it seems anywhere I go in Europe there is near-perfect reception everywhere (well, GSM/Edge, 3G in rural areas is not common everywhere) and zero dropped calls. What is so different with US?
Kinect aka Project Natal is another awesome piece of technology.
That is yet to be seen - early reports indcate that at least first titles will be very Wii Sports like simple things and not the awesomeness that was shown in trade show pre-rendered videos and untill we see actual live title it will be a glorified Sony Eyetoy.
Another metoo here - the way N900 handles Skype and VOIP is very nice.
But seriously, be aware of the battery drain. N900 lasts for a day with WiFi on and with moderate Skype use (always signed in, max. ~2h talktime). And what's annoying it still can't use all the power-saving thingies in WiFi with certain access points so you might have a surprise in some locations with hot phone draining the battery in full speed. The good thing is that it still gets fixes and matures and wifi-related bugs are still being closed.
And it is still quite expensive. If the only requirement was the wifi and SIP/Skype I would definitely google around for the Nokia E-series (S60 3rd edition, do not bother with older ones) - they tend to have good battery life and Skype and VOIP works - and you don't get the power drain of the N900's large touchscreen and Linux kernel which frankly isn't as mature on the N900 as the Symbian equivelant is regarding to power management.
Not to be forgotten - after WW II The Marshall Plan was quite a major thing helping the situation of post-WW I to not repeat itself.
It is debatable if that (basicly giving free money away, a very few receivers actually paid back the loans in full and it was quite clear even at the moment the aid was given) was a very fair deal for American taxpayer at the time but it no doubt also helped the post-war US economy in some areas.
I have experience in Symbian development and while developing for Symbian can be a huge PITA (because of multiple devices and some EPOC heritage and lack of documentation and changing APIs) it's developers tools can be installed with zero cost (on a Windows or Linux PC). My unlocked Symbian devices also default to install unsigned apps with just a warning - so basicly anyone can develop for Symbian (unlocked devices, YMMV with operator locked phones on how they are configured...).
I understand your point and I sure hope you are right - however your conclusions about the "domino effect" are IMO wrong because, well, Google is a niche player in China and Chinese people according to studies (sorry, no link...) really don't bother about the cencorship.
Publicity outside China is a nice thing and the US speaking aloud via Clinton is very, very positive sign. But signifigance of this to the Chinese is very minimum - Google doesn't make dollars to them or to shareholders in the US by being in China in large numbers - if a major goods manufacturer which makes products in China and imports to US did the same that would be different...
Google made a move everybody else was afraid to make, and they're too big to be ignored. This is going to have a geopolitical domino effect
Actually Google is not that big in China and there have been speculation that they made this move because it doesn't matter to them if they have to pull away from China because they have already lost.
Presumably what the article meant to say is that they've entered the smartphone OS wars, in that I believe that previously they'd used off the shelf OSs like Windows Mobile and Android? Comparing to the Iphone or the Droid doesn't make sense, since this is a new OS, it should be compared to OSs such as Symbian and Android (and if they were going to compare to products rather than OS, please, at least pick some of the major sellers rather than ones with small market share).
Samsung has been using lately mainly Symbian for it's smartphones, They have some Windows Mobile models but the key products have been Symbian lately. I don't recall them making or even announcing Android phones. What this means that they propably want to steer away from Nokia-owned Symbian and Qt (their Symbian models although based on the Nokia S60 platform have had UI customizations before but Qt is the way of the future for Symbian and now it's time to decide if you want to be on that ship or not). So timing makes makes complete sense, if the OS will succeed or fail...I'm hesitant to bet either way but if I had to I'd say it's too little too late and pushing out better Symbian phones than Nokia would have been better move or if you don't want to be on the same platform as your main rival then Android. Android of course comes with the big G smiling above you... Rolling your own mobile platform is a huge task nowadays when users expect "app stores" and a nifty handset with custom UI is not enough on the higher end.
This is also an interesting move on a time when Nokia has it's own first "real Linux phone" out. They of course reassure their commitment to Symbian as their platform of choise (they reaylly have to to not piss off thousands of partners and developers even if they know that Symbian has hit the end of the road and they are figuring the least bad way out) but Samsung may have devided that maybe, just maybe Nokia is not that interested in Symbian anymore as it's best OS product, at least when it comes to supporting your competition using the same platform and rolling out your own is better choise.
From the same article - read the headline "Post-war commentary regarding the motives of Stalin and Hitler", as a Finn I'd like to point out that our situation was quite troubled throughout the WW2, ranging from being "sold to soviets" to being an ally of Nazi Germany (thought not not succesfully invaded by either of two in any point, and after the Continuation War there was an aftermatch agains retrieving Germans in Lapland (which was a requirement of the peace treaty with the Soviets) - and this contributed partly to Finlandization later on.
While there is no big symphaty to Russians still among the older people in Finland because of the two wars the latter can be (in a way, how much is depending on who you ask) described as a war of an agression from Finlands part with the support of the Nazi Germany.
So overall, Russians did a great job at stopping Hitler (many times at a gunpoint from theri own lines) but the politics involved especially between Hitler and Stalni regarding Finland and Baltic countries are very interesing and still open to interreption. And the different outcome of the war has affected both Finland and Baltic countries up till today, as close neighbours as for an example Finland and Estonia are they both have a very different set of skeletons in their closets and relationships to Russia are still not an easy thing - even compared to the cold war betweeen the US and USSR. The history is very interesting and hopefully we can learn from it - and to bring this just a little closer to slashdot - a videogame should not be seen as a part of politics, yeah, it can raise issues but if me must discuss those issues through videogames we can shut down the UN and play the game instead...
Well - they sucked at different things than the powers that are in control today - and the effect of sucking is depending on if you are on the giving or receiving end. Yes - in the Putin era some teachers and doctors have received paycheks more frequently than in the Yeltsin era, but the difference is small - the only changing thing is who is taking the cream at the top. The old oligarks are banished from Russia or in jail - only to be replaced with new ones.
And while I don't want to blame the many Russians reading also this article I would still say that the memory of the late USSR still lives in Russia - that means the mentality of that as long as I do well I can look elsewhere when wrongdoings happen and rules are ment to be bent. This unfortunately leads to police corrpution and similiar things because the people really don't care as long as "things work". And the same goes to government oppression - who cares for a killed journalist, it's not my problem.
In fact airline pilot's training is very short (you can manage to get fATPL in about a year - take or leave 6 monts) which qualifies you for a co-pilot job.
Getting the f (frozen) out of the ATPL requires minimum of two years of work if you started from zero but decades?
Compare this to nearly any college degree and you find that in fact a pilot's carreer is more about getting the money fast to get the certification and meeting the healt requirements. It is expensive (though not that expensive when compared to US top-dollar universities) but is quite comparable to any job requiring constant training and a career which doesn't automaticly start from the top.
I'm with you on that pilots are not overpaid (partly because I'm one, although flying just for fun, doing boring IT stuff for work) but it is justified to ask why treat pilots any different from bus drivers if we do not count in the more expensive training and requirements? If the bus catches fire then it's dependant on luck who survies - if the plane catces fire - well, there is really not much the pilot can do besides read the manual and act as teached.
The real challenges today are not on pilot but on the systems controlling the traffic, in a single event a good pilot can save the day, but in everyday life the challenges are elsewhere.
TCAS warns you pretty loudly with TA (Traffic Alert) and with RA (Resolution Advisory) which are audible with or without headphones. In fact at least one accident (Bashkirian Airlines flight 2937 in 2002) was partially caused by the fact that the pilots involved ignored the TCAS and followed air traffic commands (look the accident up yourself, it's not that simple, there were other factors as in any air crash - but the point is that you follow the TCAS over the air traffic control).
Slashdot Mirror
Not true according to this.
I'm not sure if the poster is telling the truth but it's not hard to believe that the experinces are actual.
Haven't most reasonably-sized IT departments just spent the better part of a decade locking down office workstations so they can administer a common desktop, common applications, and impose security and authentication centrally? Do you think most IT departments want to give their users "freedom in the user experience?" I can't imagine a worse management problem than a device where each individual user goes shopping at the App Store for whatever makes them happy regardless of its fit with the business or whether IT can support it.
Yeah, I laughed at that too because the freedom with iPad is "Apple-freedom" which doesn't really allow choice in the user experince. But giving users choice with their tools isn't actually that bad according to studies I've read recently. Letting the user choose the cellphone and laptop / other equipment he/she likes can actually boost productivity instead of providing the standard one with approved centally-contolled desktop and applications. And competent it support can also handle it - it means a little bit of work on the support side but it can be a huge boost on the productivity side.
Of course assuming the end-user isn't a complete moron who just wants new gadgets because it's hip and cool and demands that everything must work on the new gizmo like it did with the old one. And that problem arises usually with those types that have too much power and too much incompetence and it support already has special (non-written, but everyone knows them) ways to deal with them because they are usually the "important people" who demand a shortcut anyway.
And yes, I own an iPad, it's a great tool for couch-surfing, games and things like that - I even bring it up with me on business trips because with it I don't have to worry about the battery life of my laptop for next days meeting and it is much nicer to hold when being bored at the hotel room bed in the evening and checking the news than a laptop. But I hardly imagine it could help me in my work - even if I want to read my work documents on the road after work-hours I have to resort to my laptop because getting the documents from svn/other systems I or our clients use on the iPad would be very hard and/or a security risk if it was allowed in a way iPad can support it. It is an innovative entertainment device, but not be-all solve-all solution.
The last two sentences on the summary are the most interesting ones. If you thought that the rate of growth of memory and processing power on standard home/office computers is out of hand just look at the supercomputers. These things are basicly old when delivered and their life is practically max. 3-5 years, after that nobody cares. And that is a pity considering how much these beasts cost and they are mostly funded with public (tax) money because running a business selling processor time from these things with their small lifetime would never be profitable.
IIRC they got so high that they've now been capped by the EU *googles* yep: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8010352.stm the prices were forced down to reasonable levels last year.
Well, I would not call that reasonable yet - just barely not insanely expensive. And data is still the blind spot, nowadays you need data to do basicly anything with your phone; even receiving calls can require data - many people use caller-id services where an add-on app check the callers name from online database(s) if it is not on your addressbook. And data is still in the "insanely expensive" category when roaming. And I won't even start talking about Google maps, Spotify and others things people are used to on their cell phones - roaming data rates instantly brings you 10 years back in time (unless of course you have heaps of money to burn and don't care about the cost).
We Europeans often laugh at USA because receiving calls uses up minutes on the plan, but roaming charges are the embarassing thing for Europe. In a way I understand that - EU nations are still independent nations, many still with phone companies which are descendants of state-owned monopolies and they want to protect their turf and "when everybody is doing it" roaming is a good place to gouge consumers.
Israel security is serious security, and not theatre, because it concentrates on the passenger, and not their belongings.
I'd take the ink-cartridge ban any day over the Israeli security. The reason they have to do it is because they are practically constantly at war.
And USA is going that way fast, I (as a white, young male from Northern Europe) have to supply my personal information in advance to US government if I want to come there and so I'm already profiled - not just the way they do in Israel because they don't (yet) have the money to do so (because of the number of passengers coming to USA).
The day we have the "Israeli security" across the globe the terrorists have won. Big time. Maybe that day someone will think what the frack went wrong - or, there just will be TSA^2 that says "bend over" without saying "please" and people will obey.
I completely agree. The energy savings and other crap which DST supposedly do are completely negated by the extra work done every year to shift timetables of trains, airplanes and busses and the effort taken to keep every gadget in the world in compliance of changing DST rules across the globe.
What is wrong with waking up at 13:00 instead of 07:00? It is just numbers and when the sun rises in particular piece of earth should not be the basis for counting time - let alone shifting it back and forth two times a year.
Regarding the dock connector: Lots of hand-waving.
Yes, fees are not unique Apple is no saint here. They could have made interoperability easiear and cheaper but chose not to - because of business reasons. Be it control over image and who make what accessories or just plain greed to milk money over others - I don't know.
And I do realize that Amazon mp3 store would not necessarily have existed if iTMS wasn't the huge success it was/is. But on the other hand - Apple could have said "screw you guys, we are not selling drm-music" - instead they said that it is ok and music industry later on thought that just maybe competition would be nice and drm was one bargaining tool and game changed.
Technology or licenses is not the key here - being at the right place at the right time is. Look at Napster (the subscription one which came after the lawsuits) or Yahoo Music - they practically died and still Spotify (I live in Northern Europe so that is what is use but I have heard US has last.fm and other similar services) now grows.
What bothers me is that people keep saying that Apple is somehow open or embraces sharing - yes, they have their merits (the mention about OS X install is good, I'm sick and tired of Microsoft's WGA crap) but they really are no different when it actually comes to what makes them money. They close, limit and charge license fees just like anyone else.
I don't think any piece of Apple-provided evidence is going to convince you, but the history is right there.
Yeah, and you just proved it - the dock connector is fine if you just want analog audio out of it. If you want the fancy features there is a license fee to pay. And yes, there is a sort of drm there - I have seen a car adapter which worked just fine on previous generation iPod but connecting a new generation one shows just "incompatible device" warning on the iPod. And there is simply nothing that could have been changed to the actual functionality - just a missing license fee.
And you are right about Apple giving what customers want - unfortunately for me that is dumbed down restricted software in a nice and shiny package. But I'm ok with that - what I'm not ok is that you among others give Apple the credit of drm-free music which they do not deserve - we got that since Amazon and others came along and right holders relized that competition is good and drm-free distribution is one way to do that.
Apple does just what sells, today it might be drm-movies and series, tomorrow it might be something else. And they are good at it at least for couple of last years.
Well, I agree somewhat on the part of RMS, but not fully.
But you are wrong about FSF and Apple's OSS participation - yes, they have taken webkit (from KDE) and contributed to it. So has Nokia and about everyone else using it. You still don't get the crown jewels which in case of webkit is Safari as a whole with Javascript engine and all the bells and whistles. Bonjour is quite a mess, seen any 3. party implementations which actually work? QT server - the same, yes, they use established standards but close just enough to not to be useful. Darwin - yeah, who created what in the first place? CUPS - yes, there is some true credit to be given there, but given that 10 years ago Unix printing was a complete mess (at least if you wanted Windows-compatibility and easy configuring for cheap printers, PS and network printing has never been a problem) this is not a great accomplishment.
In the end - yes, some low-level developers might benefit from Apple's contributions. If the projects can be ported to non-Apple specific platforms. Apple is not really an Open Source company, they just take what is good out there - and there is nothing wrong with that, but admitting that you are not the holy Jesus of Open Source is the first step.
And don't make me start with Facetime - yeah, standards, nice buzzwords with mpeg and all. Except that the implementation is so borked up that cross-platform compatibility is almost impossible while there were existing methods for video calls, but no, Apple had to make their own and better system where no one else is allowed to come.
Got any proof?
And no, Steve saying that it was the evil labels that made them do the drm doesn't count. Apple is still pro-DRM where it matters to them (apps, movies, books, even their own ipod-connector etc.). The plan for Apple is to make money, and competition will change the scenery by introducing alternatives. Hopefully.
Whilst I agree with everything you say, the Amiga OS was also an insecure hell. OK, as coders we got absolute control over everything, but had the Amiga 'won', the whole OS would have had to go through a total re-write to implement a whole lot of protection in order to prevent a gross malware bloom.
Well, virus situation was bad at some times but that was mostly due to very active piracy and copying floppies to trade games. It really wasn't worse than MS-DOS/Windows3.1 at the time - the only difference was that MS-DOS had less games and kids traded them less.
As for the absolute control - the lack of MMU on 68000 (A500, A1000) and the 68EC020 (A1200) meant that a rogue application could indeed crash the whole OS easily and while the OS had pre-emptive multitasking it had only little protection against ill-behaving processes on machines without MMU.
In other words it seems like if a network has issues, they will be amplified by the complexity of the phone.
Yes, this whole "dropped calls" issue seems to be very US specific. I don't know what is wrong with AT&T and other US carriers - here in Finland since NMT (old analog standard) times I have never, ever had a "dropped call" which wasn't an issue with dead battery or simply losing coverage eg. in a train going to a tunnel. Not even when traveling and skiing in the Alps where I can be in 3 countries in the same day a few kilometer apart I've had zero problems. I know that magazines still test the reception of the phones and it is all good - the function must not be sacrified to form or anything else. But it still puzzles me that it seems anywhere I go in Europe there is near-perfect reception everywhere (well, GSM/Edge, 3G in rural areas is not common everywhere) and zero dropped calls. What is so different with US?
How about this innovative and original MS piece?
Amiga had this also before Windows :)
Kinect aka Project Natal is another awesome piece of technology.
That is yet to be seen - early reports indcate that at least first titles will be very Wii Sports like simple things and not the awesomeness that was shown in trade show pre-rendered videos and untill we see actual live title it will be a glorified Sony Eyetoy.
Another metoo here - the way N900 handles Skype and VOIP is very nice.
But seriously, be aware of the battery drain. N900 lasts for a day with WiFi on and with moderate Skype use (always signed in, max. ~2h talktime). And what's annoying it still can't use all the power-saving thingies in WiFi with certain access points so you might have a surprise in some locations with hot phone draining the battery in full speed. The good thing is that it still gets fixes and matures and wifi-related bugs are still being closed.
And it is still quite expensive. If the only requirement was the wifi and SIP/Skype I would definitely google around for the Nokia E-series (S60 3rd edition, do not bother with older ones) - they tend to have good battery life and Skype and VOIP works - and you don't get the power drain of the N900's large touchscreen and Linux kernel which frankly isn't as mature on the N900 as the Symbian equivelant is regarding to power management.
N900 runs full Flash (not lite, 9.4 at the moment with 10 coming). N900 probably hasn't sold in the millions so your statement may be true.
Not to be forgotten - after WW II The Marshall Plan was quite a major thing helping the situation of post-WW I to not repeat itself.
It is debatable if that (basicly giving free money away, a very few receivers actually paid back the loans in full and it was quite clear even at the moment the aid was given) was a very fair deal for American taxpayer at the time but it no doubt also helped the post-war US economy in some areas.
I have experience in Symbian development and while developing for Symbian can be a huge PITA (because of multiple devices and some EPOC heritage and lack of documentation and changing APIs) it's developers tools can be installed with zero cost (on a Windows or Linux PC). My unlocked Symbian devices also default to install unsigned apps with just a warning - so basicly anyone can develop for Symbian (unlocked devices, YMMV with operator locked phones on how they are configured...).
I understand your point and I sure hope you are right - however your conclusions about the "domino effect" are IMO wrong because, well, Google is a niche player in China and Chinese people according to studies (sorry, no link...) really don't bother about the cencorship.
Publicity outside China is a nice thing and the US speaking aloud via Clinton is very, very positive sign. But signifigance of this to the Chinese is very minimum - Google doesn't make dollars to them or to shareholders in the US by being in China in large numbers - if a major goods manufacturer which makes products in China and imports to US did the same that would be different...
Google made a move everybody else was afraid to make, and they're too big to be ignored. This is going to have a geopolitical domino effect
Actually Google is not that big in China and there have been speculation that they made this move because it doesn't matter to them if they have to pull away from China because they have already lost.
And to correct myself - Samsung has Android phones like the I7500. Should have remembered that. Seems like they are playing in all tables.
Presumably what the article meant to say is that they've entered the smartphone OS wars, in that I believe that previously they'd used off the shelf OSs like Windows Mobile and Android? Comparing to the Iphone or the Droid doesn't make sense, since this is a new OS, it should be compared to OSs such as Symbian and Android (and if they were going to compare to products rather than OS, please, at least pick some of the major sellers rather than ones with small market share).
Samsung has been using lately mainly Symbian for it's smartphones, They have some Windows Mobile models but the key products have been Symbian lately. I don't recall them making or even announcing Android phones. What this means that they propably want to steer away from Nokia-owned Symbian and Qt (their Symbian models although based on the Nokia S60 platform have had UI customizations before but Qt is the way of the future for Symbian and now it's time to decide if you want to be on that ship or not). So timing makes makes complete sense, if the OS will succeed or fail...I'm hesitant to bet either way but if I had to I'd say it's too little too late and pushing out better Symbian phones than Nokia would have been better move or if you don't want to be on the same platform as your main rival then Android. Android of course comes with the big G smiling above you... Rolling your own mobile platform is a huge task nowadays when users expect "app stores" and a nifty handset with custom UI is not enough on the higher end.
This is also an interesting move on a time when Nokia has it's own first "real Linux phone" out. They of course reassure their commitment to Symbian as their platform of choise (they reaylly have to to not piss off thousands of partners and developers even if they know that Symbian has hit the end of the road and they are figuring the least bad way out) but Samsung may have devided that maybe, just maybe Nokia is not that interested in Symbian anymore as it's best OS product, at least when it comes to supporting your competition using the same platform and rolling out your own is better choise.
From the same article - read the headline "Post-war commentary regarding the motives of Stalin and Hitler", as a Finn I'd like to point out that our situation was quite troubled throughout the WW2, ranging from being "sold to soviets" to being an ally of Nazi Germany (thought not not succesfully invaded by either of two in any point, and after the Continuation War there was an aftermatch agains retrieving Germans in Lapland (which was a requirement of the peace treaty with the Soviets) - and this contributed partly to Finlandization later on.
While there is no big symphaty to Russians still among the older people in Finland because of the two wars the latter can be (in a way, how much is depending on who you ask) described as a war of an agression from Finlands part with the support of the Nazi Germany.
So overall, Russians did a great job at stopping Hitler (many times at a gunpoint from theri own lines) but the politics involved especially between Hitler and Stalni regarding Finland and Baltic countries are very interesing and still open to interreption. And the different outcome of the war has affected both Finland and Baltic countries up till today, as close neighbours as for an example Finland and Estonia are they both have a very different set of skeletons in their closets and relationships to Russia are still not an easy thing - even compared to the cold war betweeen the US and USSR. The history is very interesting and hopefully we can learn from it - and to bring this just a little closer to slashdot - a videogame should not be seen as a part of politics, yeah, it can raise issues but if me must discuss those issues through videogames we can shut down the UN and play the game instead...
Well - they sucked at different things than the powers that are in control today - and the effect of sucking is depending on if you are on the giving or receiving end. Yes - in the Putin era some teachers and doctors have received paycheks more frequently than in the Yeltsin era, but the difference is small - the only changing thing is who is taking the cream at the top. The old oligarks are banished from Russia or in jail - only to be replaced with new ones.
And while I don't want to blame the many Russians reading also this article I would still say that the memory of the late USSR still lives in Russia - that means the mentality of that as long as I do well I can look elsewhere when wrongdoings happen and rules are ment to be bent. This unfortunately leads to police corrpution and similiar things because the people really don't care as long as "things work". And the same goes to government oppression - who cares for a killed journalist, it's not my problem.
Decades?
In fact airline pilot's training is very short (you can manage to get fATPL in about a year - take or leave 6 monts) which qualifies you for a co-pilot job.
Getting the f (frozen) out of the ATPL requires minimum of two years of work if you started from zero but decades?
Compare this to nearly any college degree and you find that in fact a pilot's carreer is more about getting the money fast to get the certification and meeting the healt requirements. It is expensive (though not that expensive when compared to US top-dollar universities) but is quite comparable to any job requiring constant training and a career which doesn't automaticly start from the top.
I'm with you on that pilots are not overpaid (partly because I'm one, although flying just for fun, doing boring IT stuff for work) but it is justified to ask why treat pilots any different from bus drivers if we do not count in the more expensive training and requirements? If the bus catches fire then it's dependant on luck who survies - if the plane catces fire - well, there is really not much the pilot can do besides read the manual and act as teached.
The real challenges today are not on pilot but on the systems controlling the traffic, in a single event a good pilot can save the day, but in everyday life the challenges are elsewhere.
TCAS warns you pretty loudly with TA (Traffic Alert) and with RA (Resolution Advisory) which are audible with or without headphones. In fact at least one accident (Bashkirian Airlines flight 2937 in 2002) was partially caused by the fact that the pilots involved ignored the TCAS and followed air traffic commands (look the accident up yourself, it's not that simple, there were other factors as in any air crash - but the point is that you follow the TCAS over the air traffic control).