Where the hell did I say HTC=Linux?! HTC uses linux (via Android), and I said linux users
2) I find it hard to blame a company for doing what every other company is doing in order to keep competitive.
Blame the broken system rather than the companies who take advantage of what they're given.
Not every other company (unless you meant 50% of all companies). You have Microsost, Apple, Oracle, the patent trolls. And then there are companies who don't wage the IP war waving ridiculous software patents. Google is a good example for the latter.
I think as a conciliatory gesture, Microsoft should stop it's patent extortion practices against users of Linux. In case you were wondering, I'm talking about HTC.
I know that there'll be a steady stream of snarky remarks about who ridiculous the whole idea is, but it's still a brilliant move. Due to my work, I'm in constant touch with the "new generation" - students in the range of 13-25. And they like this kind of stuff. Don't ask me why, but they are fascinated by the possibilities of exhibitionism on the Internet - "telling the world what you're doing" kinda of stuff. Had a girlfriend a few months back, and she loved Facebook of course, and location services. She loved to "check in" every place she went to, and let everybody know that she is there. Once we traveled to the south of the city, which is a huge area of mangrove forest. There's absolutely nothing there, just a very small and rather poor fishing village, lots of water, swamp, and thick mangrove forests. And when we arrived, she was trying to check in with her phone. Amazing! This is just one of the many reasons why our relationship was brief. But the point is, that young people love collecting things like that, even if it sounds ridiculous to some of us. I'm not that old actually (34), but I know many here are older than that;)
Why don't these articles ever tell you WHICH markets and apps are affected? Oh, that's right, they're too busy trying to generate page hits through scare-mongering to care about information.
(I'm not trying to say these aren't legitimate threats: quite the opposite. But, good reporting would help mitigate these threats by publicly shaming and informing.)
Exactly. Also, chances are, that there are HUNDREDS of malware in unofficial Chinese markets - will we get a new slashdot post for each and every one of them? Editors: wtf?
But the point is:
1) Google is acting evil (if my mom had tried to do this herself, she'd be stuck with a horrible antivirus product - or two, there's two in the Pack)
2) Chrome installs are up because of their evil.
Giving free advertising to Chrome on Google.com is borderline evil, too. Leverage of monopolistic powers and all.
I agree with 1) but I don't see 2) as evil. I mean... how do you propose they tell people about Chrome. Google is an advertising company. Wherever they put a Chrome link you'd consider it an advertisement and a proof of their evil. So what can they do? Develop Chrome than keep it a secret? Make a blog post on their blog that nobody reads (except maybe 0.0000000001% of all Internet users). Even 1) would be OK - I have no problems with their own software - grandma will not use them, but they won't do any harm either... but inflicting one, possibly two antivirus on an unsuspecting user... that hurts! I'm a Google fan - love their products, vision of computing in general - and this came as a surprise. Kinda disappointing.
I presume, then, that your act of civil disobedience occurs after the original copyright period? E.g., if you pirate music or movies from RIAA or the MPAA, you're waiting 14 years from the filing of copyright title (or 28 years in case the author(s) survive for the original term and elect to renew their filing the copyright title) to pirate the media?
Because that was the original copyright law in the US, you know:
You raise some good points there. It may seem a bit hypocritical if I didn't wait. Problem is, that the system itself is corrupt. I believe that copyright should belong to the author. 300 years the author exchanged his copyright for the privilege of promotion and publishing offered by publishing houses. This hasn't changed much for centuries. Producing art and selling it was prohibitively expensive. Not anymore. Artists no longer need to slave for the major labels. MTV is no longer the only source of music. There's this thing called the Internet, you know. And we have systems in place to help young and talented artists in self-publishing, and we see a great more deal of variety of pretty much everything. I'm not about to spend any money on an organization that 1) stole my and my children's access to culture 2) is working on restoring a world where they're the gatekeepers - they create celebrities, stars, and the so called "mainstream" crap that are inflicted on us through MTV and the likes.
No! Don't buy, don't pirate!
If you download the media you're still endorsing the RIAA and MPAA. You're demonstrating that they're the ones creating the content that people want and you're still legitimising what they produce.
I see your point, but most of the music I listen to are indies. Lounge music, nu-jazz, jazz, etc. I pay for that stuff whenever I can. Occasionally, I stumble upon something that's actually good and I want, but comes from a RIAA label. Look, RIAA is a fishing company. For every good artist they find they create nine crap ones - assembly-line celebrities, basically. And when you pay for that one good artist you are also supporting nine crap ones. That's a rotten business model - and choosing to pirate is still the more ethical choice.
RIAA and friends are calling downloader thieves. I'm going to say something that might not be very popular with the holier-than-thou types: pirating music from labels are members of RIAA, MPAA and their equivalents is an ethical obligation. Here is why.
If I was born about 200 years ago, I could be reasonably certain that I could share art that I enjoyed as a teen with my own children, not to mention my grandchildren. My generation would have enjoyed this "privilege" as well. This has been stolen from us. They stole our public domain. Thanks to the lobbying of the movie and music industries and corrupt politicians, now we have a copyright extend beyond our own children's lifetime. Generations lost access to culture. And these people have the guts to call downloaders pirates?!
I want RIAA, MPAA and friends to die. As soon as possible. I'm refusing to buy any music or movies published under their label. I'm more than willing to pay for entertainment by the way. I will buy Mass Effect 3 as soon as it's out. I'd support musicians who are experimenting with self publishing or services like Jamendo. But I would never pay for music when I know that about 70% of my money goes to thieves. Thieves that did the public HUGE harm - depriving generations from access to culture, be it music, literature or whatever.
That guy certainly had balls. He's basically asking the CEOs of the company to resign, along with half the management. And if half of what he writes is true (and based on other employee reaction, it seems to be), they should go! I found the links in the open later very interesting as well. I have no love for Apple, their vision of the future of computing quite frankly scares me - I prefer to decide myself what is or isn't appropriate for my consumption (censoring Ulysses ffs?!). That said, there are a lot to be admired about Apple - their marketing strategies, their organization and management techniques, etc. I never saw the linked keynote, and I found it quite interesting. The second link to the video about leadership/marketing was equally interesting.
It's such a pity that RIM's response is basically "fuck off!" - way to bury their heads in the sand.
The method they *could* use to tell would be to take a hash of the file. When you rip the cd, you will get a different hash each time. With file sharing services most likely there are only 3 or 4 rips that are shared among thousands of people. Consequently, if you see someone with a copy of a particular song that has a hash of one of these commonly shared files, chances are miniscule that it isn't a pirated copy.
Good explanation. Luckily, it's easy to circumvent. I think the author's worry is that his pirated music will be detect somehow (I don't believe for a minute that he's worried about mp3 files downloaded in the 90s - that's just too ridiculous). Anyway, I believe this is doable in the way you describe it. It's also easy to write software that would remove a single bit from all downloaded files from random locations (or it could add random microseconds of silence to the end or the beginning). This would randomize hashes of all files you dowload. So I think if such database exists, it's not in use at the moment.
Just don't worry about it. Only a dumbass would worry about legality of his music. If you're listening to it, it's yours.
I think he isn't worried. He just didn't have the balls to ask directly: Is it possible to detect by software (implies remotely) whether my mp3 files are pirated or not.. That's a good question.
If you yourself can't determine the legality of the (music) files you possess, how can the RIAA? a court?
I agree completely. I also think it's a joke (or well, kinda sarcastic). I never heard of RIAA knocking on someone's door who is not a file sharer. Mr Anonymous Reader is "obviously" not sharing any files on the net, that would piracy, and our good citizen would never do such thing. In fact, he is worried about possessing a few mp3 files that might be "pirated". Right. I believe the real question is: "can they detect if an mp3 file is pirated or not?". A GOOD QUESTION!
I think firewall is a bit overkill. My advice would be to just use normally. I do. I DON'T install apps from shady sources, I just use the official Market. I have a few dozen apps installed, and I clicked through the permission screen mindlessly, yes. Why? Almost every app needs network access, after some time I got bored reading through the list of permission they require. BUT - the apps I install are well established apps with overwhelmingly positive reviews (based on a large number of reviewers). That's basically it - just use common sense.
And yeah, I enabled geolocation - not allowing it doesn't make me any safer. The information is NOT shared with the world by default, but it helps with weather apps, and targeted ads in the few ad supported apps I have. And I do prefer those to random shit from accross the world... So, as I said, just use it, the Market is pretty safe, but don't install just released apps mindlessly (you won't need to anyway, the quality of apps in the market has increased dramatically since I started using my Nexus last August).
That said, I never ever do anything like online banking on my phone. I have a PC and a Laptop (well, slate actually) for that. I entered my password for sync (gmail/picasa/calendar/etc) when starting up the phone the first time. So even if some app installs a secret keylogger (very very unlikely with the above common sense measures) what can they get? My text messages? I'm not in the habit of writing lenghty emails on my phone either... So never type sensitive passwords (banking, cc numbers, passwords) - and that's about it. If you need apps that want some password (Skype, YM, whatever) install them first before installing anything else. And just enjoy your phone, don't be too paranoid - I'm very very satisfied with my Nexus (ran cyanogenmod for some time, but switched back to stock, running Gingerbread 2.3.3 now + Go Launcher) - it's a very well built, sturdy little thing.
Well, informing the public is a start. Buy Kindle, buy books for Amazon, and be forever dependent on Amazon's gadgets to access the books you purchased for almost the same price as the dead tree versions! I'm a big fan of eBook readers - I hate reading on a backlit LCD. When I was shopping for an eBook reader, I carefully considered all options, and ended up with... WAIT FOR IT... SONY - yeah, that's right. No DRM on their online bookstore, and it reads everything you throw at it - PDF,.epub, text, even MS Word files. Fully supported by the FLOSS Calibre book management software... Comes with SD card slot, replaceable battery, touch screen and the FULL Oxford Dictionary (both AmE and BrE). After using it for some time, I wrote a short review, and explained in details why Kindle is a bad idea. I also happened to recommend piracy, for an entirely different reason (not that my review is intended to Vietnamese students and complete noobs).
That's like putting a steel door on a straw house...
That's not Funny (mods!) that's accurate. You set all your privacy settings to friends only. You refuse all app invitations by default. And yet, your email address and every detail you publish will be handled to spammers on a silver platter by a single person who clicked on the "who viewed your profile" scam. Facebook is becoming MySpace - a platform for spammers, scammers and virus writers, not to mention Facebook's shady partners (Zynga & Co). I quit - I still have my profile, but left a message, a note and a short blurb on my profile info with links to my blog where I explain in detail why I left and encouraging others to do so. The final straw was when a lady accused me publicly (ie on my wall) of stalking her. Had no idea who she was actually (I probably knew her - friend of a friend of a friend or sth, I never accepted friend requests from complete strangers) - probably my name was chosen randomly from her contact list when accepting one of the "who viewed your profile" invitations. I think Facebook is past its peak - it was ok and useful, but now it's more trouble than it's worth. And we do have plenty of alternatives for keeping in touch.
I bought the EP121 - the thing with the pen - on screen keyboard sucks of course, though not as bad as the ipad. However, character recognition works wonders - I mean I have a terrible handwriting, and it still gets most things rights. You can also select text from an existing document and correct mistakes with a few gestures. And then there is OneNote, which needs no character recognition (but it maintains a list of possible words for each word you wrote, so your handwritten notes I searchable!) - I think this is the (short-term) future of data-input on a tablet. It works very well for me (had to teach it to recognize some of my characters though, but this is pretty straightforward). I haven't written much by hand in the past 10-15 years or so, and now I'm using the good old method of data input - on perhaps one of the most advanced portable devices currently on the market. (The EP121 is a full PC, intel i5 processor, 4GB DDR3 RAM, usb ports, sdcard reader, HDMI output that doubles as a wacom tablet with an IPS screen and gorilla glass! Note that it does have a rather comfortable wireless keyboard, but don't take it with me much).
"2) Your phone is not pre-tapped, the database cannot be accessed on the phone without hacking/jailbreaking"
Apple can access it any time (there is no evidence though that it does, except copying it all over the place). They could have issued an iOS update that made use of that data at any time in the future... And since intentionality of this database is well established now, it just makes sense that they actually wanted to do so. It sounds unreasonable that they just collected the data to have it sit around on every iDevice you have without using it. I think, as many speculate (and this is not far fetched at all) that this data could be used as a selling point to ad partners - I mean not even Google has that kind of info on you, and unlike Apple, you have full control over what they have and can clear it if you wish so.
Yeah - but those are closed system's, aren't they? I mean you won't browse the net and download shit on your $100k machine, not the mention the $2M one, right? So what's the problem? Ending support for XP will not mean that they magically stop working on your machines, or that MS will wipe them remotely...
We believed someone who used a 3rd rate antivirus and didnt verify with a kernel debugger? FAIL on all our parts especially the "security researcher" who so thoroughly researched this one
Agreed, though I'm quite happy with the results of this FAIL - it showed what would happen if indeed, Samsung installed a keylogger. Sooner or later a company would have decided this to be a good idea. So it's kind of nice to have this small shitstorm without actual damage. The linked article uses such strong wordings as "the panic that arose yesterday"... good! Companies should be reminded from time to time how sensitive this issue is...
Actually, before buying my NEXUS ONE, I looked up quite a few comparison's on youtube. They were pretty much matched, but it some tests the Nexus was faster. In one particular test, by the time the iPhone4 loaded the homepage of the review sites, on the Nexus it was already loaded and a flash video playing. The difference still was just around 1 second, which is not the end of the world of course, but noticeable enough. I concluded that for web browsing, the Nexus is as good or slightly better as the iPhone. And remember, I'm talking about the Nexus One that came out 4 months before the iPhone4. So I do believe there might be something to this... and yeah, I've been a very happy Nexus owner since then. It's longevity is superb - still can't find anything that tops it. I mean yeah, there are better and faster phones out there right now, but I couldn't find a single compelling feature that would prompt me to buy a new phone for the foreseeable future.
Slashdot Mirror
1) HTC != "Linux"
Where the hell did I say HTC=Linux?! HTC uses linux (via Android), and I said linux users
2) I find it hard to blame a company for doing what every other company is doing in order to keep competitive.
Blame the broken system rather than the companies who take advantage of what they're given.
Not every other company (unless you meant 50% of all companies). You have Microsost, Apple, Oracle, the patent trolls. And then there are companies who don't wage the IP war waving ridiculous software patents. Google is a good example for the latter.
I think as a conciliatory gesture, Microsoft should stop it's patent extortion practices against users of Linux. In case you were wondering, I'm talking about HTC.
I know that there'll be a steady stream of snarky remarks about who ridiculous the whole idea is, but it's still a brilliant move. Due to my work, I'm in constant touch with the "new generation" - students in the range of 13-25. And they like this kind of stuff. Don't ask me why, but they are fascinated by the possibilities of exhibitionism on the Internet - "telling the world what you're doing" kinda of stuff. Had a girlfriend a few months back, and she loved Facebook of course, and location services. She loved to "check in" every place she went to, and let everybody know that she is there. Once we traveled to the south of the city, which is a huge area of mangrove forest. There's absolutely nothing there, just a very small and rather poor fishing village, lots of water, swamp, and thick mangrove forests. And when we arrived, she was trying to check in with her phone. Amazing! This is just one of the many reasons why our relationship was brief. But the point is, that young people love collecting things like that, even if it sounds ridiculous to some of us. I'm not that old actually (34), but I know many here are older than that ;)
Why don't these articles ever tell you WHICH markets and apps are affected? Oh, that's right, they're too busy trying to generate page hits through scare-mongering to care about information.
(I'm not trying to say these aren't legitimate threats: quite the opposite. But, good reporting would help mitigate these threats by publicly shaming and informing.)
Exactly. Also, chances are, that there are HUNDREDS of malware in unofficial Chinese markets - will we get a new slashdot post for each and every one of them? Editors: wtf?
Washington DC has rotaries, not roundabouts.
How about reading your own link:
"Traffic circle" is a term mainly used in the United States to describe a junction which in other countries would be called a roundabout.
.
But the point is: 1) Google is acting evil (if my mom had tried to do this herself, she'd be stuck with a horrible antivirus product - or two, there's two in the Pack) 2) Chrome installs are up because of their evil.
Giving free advertising to Chrome on Google.com is borderline evil, too. Leverage of monopolistic powers and all.
I agree with 1) but I don't see 2) as evil. I mean ... how do you propose they tell people about Chrome. Google is an advertising company. Wherever they put a Chrome link you'd consider it an advertisement and a proof of their evil. So what can they do? Develop Chrome than keep it a secret? Make a blog post on their blog that nobody reads (except maybe 0.0000000001% of all Internet users). Even 1) would be OK - I have no problems with their own software - grandma will not use them, but they won't do any harm either... but inflicting one, possibly two antivirus on an unsuspecting user... that hurts! I'm a Google fan - love their products, vision of computing in general - and this came as a surprise. Kinda disappointing.
I presume, then, that your act of civil disobedience occurs after the original copyright period? E.g., if you pirate music or movies from RIAA or the MPAA, you're waiting 14 years from the filing of copyright title (or 28 years in case the author(s) survive for the original term and elect to renew their filing the copyright title) to pirate the media?
Because that was the original copyright law in the US, you know:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
You raise some good points there. It may seem a bit hypocritical if I didn't wait. Problem is, that the system itself is corrupt. I believe that copyright should belong to the author. 300 years the author exchanged his copyright for the privilege of promotion and publishing offered by publishing houses. This hasn't changed much for centuries. Producing art and selling it was prohibitively expensive. Not anymore. Artists no longer need to slave for the major labels. MTV is no longer the only source of music. There's this thing called the Internet, you know. And we have systems in place to help young and talented artists in self-publishing, and we see a great more deal of variety of pretty much everything. I'm not about to spend any money on an organization that 1) stole my and my children's access to culture 2) is working on restoring a world where they're the gatekeepers - they create celebrities, stars, and the so called "mainstream" crap that are inflicted on us through MTV and the likes.
No! Don't buy, don't pirate! If you download the media you're still endorsing the RIAA and MPAA. You're demonstrating that they're the ones creating the content that people want and you're still legitimising what they produce.
I see your point, but most of the music I listen to are indies. Lounge music, nu-jazz, jazz, etc. I pay for that stuff whenever I can. Occasionally, I stumble upon something that's actually good and I want, but comes from a RIAA label. Look, RIAA is a fishing company. For every good artist they find they create nine crap ones - assembly-line celebrities, basically. And when you pay for that one good artist you are also supporting nine crap ones. That's a rotten business model - and choosing to pirate is still the more ethical choice.
RIAA and friends are calling downloader thieves. I'm going to say something that might not be very popular with the holier-than-thou types: pirating music from labels are members of RIAA, MPAA and their equivalents is an ethical obligation. Here is why.
If I was born about 200 years ago, I could be reasonably certain that I could share art that I enjoyed as a teen with my own children, not to mention my grandchildren. My generation would have enjoyed this "privilege" as well. This has been stolen from us. They stole our public domain. Thanks to the lobbying of the movie and music industries and corrupt politicians, now we have a copyright extend beyond our own children's lifetime. Generations lost access to culture. And these people have the guts to call downloaders pirates?!
I want RIAA, MPAA and friends to die. As soon as possible. I'm refusing to buy any music or movies published under their label. I'm more than willing to pay for entertainment by the way. I will buy Mass Effect 3 as soon as it's out. I'd support musicians who are experimenting with self publishing or services like Jamendo. But I would never pay for music when I know that about 70% of my money goes to thieves. Thieves that did the public HUGE harm - depriving generations from access to culture, be it music, literature or whatever.
It's such a pity that RIM's response is basically "fuck off!" - way to bury their heads in the sand.
The method they *could* use to tell would be to take a hash of the file. When you rip the cd, you will get a different hash each time. With file sharing services most likely there are only 3 or 4 rips that are shared among thousands of people. Consequently, if you see someone with a copy of a particular song that has a hash of one of these commonly shared files, chances are miniscule that it isn't a pirated copy.
Good explanation. Luckily, it's easy to circumvent. I think the author's worry is that his pirated music will be detect somehow (I don't believe for a minute that he's worried about mp3 files downloaded in the 90s - that's just too ridiculous). Anyway, I believe this is doable in the way you describe it. It's also easy to write software that would remove a single bit from all downloaded files from random locations (or it could add random microseconds of silence to the end or the beginning). This would randomize hashes of all files you dowload. So I think if such database exists, it's not in use at the moment.
Just don't worry about it. Only a dumbass would worry about legality of his music. If you're listening to it, it's yours.
I think he isn't worried. He just didn't have the balls to ask directly: Is it possible to detect by software (implies remotely) whether my mp3 files are pirated or not.. That's a good question.
Smartest question I've seen on /.
If you yourself can't determine the legality of the (music) files you possess, how can the RIAA? a court?
I agree completely. I also think it's a joke (or well, kinda sarcastic). I never heard of RIAA knocking on someone's door who is not a file sharer. Mr Anonymous Reader is "obviously" not sharing any files on the net, that would piracy, and our good citizen would never do such thing. In fact, he is worried about possessing a few mp3 files that might be "pirated". Right. I believe the real question is: "can they detect if an mp3 file is pirated or not?". A GOOD QUESTION!
In S. Korea, Android marketshare March 2010: 3% March 2011: 60% - not kidding!
And yeah, I enabled geolocation - not allowing it doesn't make me any safer. The information is NOT shared with the world by default, but it helps with weather apps, and targeted ads in the few ad supported apps I have. And I do prefer those to random shit from accross the world... So, as I said, just use it, the Market is pretty safe, but don't install just released apps mindlessly (you won't need to anyway, the quality of apps in the market has increased dramatically since I started using my Nexus last August).
That said, I never ever do anything like online banking on my phone. I have a PC and a Laptop (well, slate actually) for that. I entered my password for sync (gmail/picasa/calendar/etc) when starting up the phone the first time. So even if some app installs a secret keylogger (very very unlikely with the above common sense measures) what can they get? My text messages? I'm not in the habit of writing lenghty emails on my phone either... So never type sensitive passwords (banking, cc numbers, passwords) - and that's about it. If you need apps that want some password (Skype, YM, whatever) install them first before installing anything else. And just enjoy your phone, don't be too paranoid - I'm very very satisfied with my Nexus (ran cyanogenmod for some time, but switched back to stock, running Gingerbread 2.3.3 now + Go Launcher) - it's a very well built, sturdy little thing.
Well, informing the public is a start. Buy Kindle, buy books for Amazon, and be forever dependent on Amazon's gadgets to access the books you purchased for almost the same price as the dead tree versions! I'm a big fan of eBook readers - I hate reading on a backlit LCD. When I was shopping for an eBook reader, I carefully considered all options, and ended up with... WAIT FOR IT... SONY - yeah, that's right. No DRM on their online bookstore, and it reads everything you throw at it - PDF, .epub, text, even MS Word files. Fully supported by the FLOSS Calibre book management software... Comes with SD card slot, replaceable battery, touch screen and the FULL Oxford Dictionary (both AmE and BrE). After using it for some time, I wrote a short review, and explained in details why Kindle is a bad idea. I also happened to recommend piracy, for an entirely different reason (not that my review is intended to Vietnamese students and complete noobs).
That's like putting a steel door on a straw house...
That's not Funny (mods!) that's accurate. You set all your privacy settings to friends only. You refuse all app invitations by default. And yet, your email address and every detail you publish will be handled to spammers on a silver platter by a single person who clicked on the "who viewed your profile" scam. Facebook is becoming MySpace - a platform for spammers, scammers and virus writers, not to mention Facebook's shady partners (Zynga & Co). I quit - I still have my profile, but left a message, a note and a short blurb on my profile info with links to my blog where I explain in detail why I left and encouraging others to do so. The final straw was when a lady accused me publicly (ie on my wall) of stalking her. Had no idea who she was actually (I probably knew her - friend of a friend of a friend or sth, I never accepted friend requests from complete strangers) - probably my name was chosen randomly from her contact list when accepting one of the "who viewed your profile" invitations. I think Facebook is past its peak - it was ok and useful, but now it's more trouble than it's worth. And we do have plenty of alternatives for keeping in touch.
So is this the sign that Facebook is turning into Myspace - gazillion of apps, horrible UI, and becoming a SPAM platform. And just finished my blog about why I ditched facebook a few hours ago: http://eyesbeyond.blogspot.com/2011/05/who-viewed-your-profile-on-facebook-and.html
You miss iTunes? I can't believe this...
I bought the EP121 - the thing with the pen - on screen keyboard sucks of course, though not as bad as the ipad. However, character recognition works wonders - I mean I have a terrible handwriting, and it still gets most things rights. You can also select text from an existing document and correct mistakes with a few gestures. And then there is OneNote, which needs no character recognition (but it maintains a list of possible words for each word you wrote, so your handwritten notes I searchable!) - I think this is the (short-term) future of data-input on a tablet. It works very well for me (had to teach it to recognize some of my characters though, but this is pretty straightforward). I haven't written much by hand in the past 10-15 years or so, and now I'm using the good old method of data input - on perhaps one of the most advanced portable devices currently on the market. (The EP121 is a full PC, intel i5 processor, 4GB DDR3 RAM, usb ports, sdcard reader, HDMI output that doubles as a wacom tablet with an IPS screen and gorilla glass! Note that it does have a rather comfortable wireless keyboard, but don't take it with me much).
"2) Your phone is not pre-tapped, the database cannot be accessed on the phone without hacking/jailbreaking"
Apple can access it any time (there is no evidence though that it does, except copying it all over the place). They could have issued an iOS update that made use of that data at any time in the future... And since intentionality of this database is well established now, it just makes sense that they actually wanted to do so. It sounds unreasonable that they just collected the data to have it sit around on every iDevice you have without using it. I think, as many speculate (and this is not far fetched at all) that this data could be used as a selling point to ad partners - I mean not even Google has that kind of info on you, and unlike Apple, you have full control over what they have and can clear it if you wish so.
Yeah - but those are closed system's, aren't they? I mean you won't browse the net and download shit on your $100k machine, not the mention the $2M one, right? So what's the problem? Ending support for XP will not mean that they magically stop working on your machines, or that MS will wipe them remotely...
We believed someone who used a 3rd rate antivirus and didnt verify with a kernel debugger? FAIL on all our parts especially the "security researcher" who so thoroughly researched this one
Agreed, though I'm quite happy with the results of this FAIL - it showed what would happen if indeed, Samsung installed a keylogger. Sooner or later a company would have decided this to be a good idea. So it's kind of nice to have this small shitstorm without actual damage. The linked article uses such strong wordings as "the panic that arose yesterday" ... good! Companies should be reminded from time to time how sensitive this issue is...
Actually, before buying my NEXUS ONE, I looked up quite a few comparison's on youtube. They were pretty much matched, but it some tests the Nexus was faster. In one particular test, by the time the iPhone4 loaded the homepage of the review sites, on the Nexus it was already loaded and a flash video playing. The difference still was just around 1 second, which is not the end of the world of course, but noticeable enough. I concluded that for web browsing, the Nexus is as good or slightly better as the iPhone. And remember, I'm talking about the Nexus One that came out 4 months before the iPhone4. So I do believe there might be something to this... and yeah, I've been a very happy Nexus owner since then. It's longevity is superb - still can't find anything that tops it. I mean yeah, there are better and faster phones out there right now, but I couldn't find a single compelling feature that would prompt me to buy a new phone for the foreseeable future.
4 animals in 23 seconds. Woohooo!