I have no problem with unobtrusive ads that aren't all flashing animation and sound and which do not slow down my system with their overblown Flash garbage. If it does not interfere with my use of the web, I'm fine with them.
Until advertisers start delivering those ads, I'll keep using adblock.
Free speech, the right to bear arms, a common trait of all things that are actually rights is that they do not cost money.
Ok, I'll preface this with noting that, yes, I'm Canadian so feel free to dismiss my thoughts as those of a (as an American friend likes to joke) "tree-hugging Commie". You put free speech along side the right to bear arms as inalienable and "intangible" rights that do not cost money. The right to bear arms? Are you kidding me? You want the government to start handing out guns for free because it is a right that you were given by birth?
Look, I don't give a rats ass about the arguments for or against the right to bear arms but to imply that those rights and the right to free speech are somehow similar rights - rights that one possesses simply by the virtue of being born - is laughable.
Like I said, I'm a tree-hugging Commie so feel free to ignore, as you desire.
Anyone who thinks, for even a second, that Microsoft will respect your privacy _more_ than Google is a fool. I'm fine with anyone having an issue with Google's policy's regarding personal data but for anyone to think that Microsoft will be better is simply laughable.
While I realize that the best way to preserve your privacy online is to not sign up for sites like Facebook, the fact remains that Facebook appears to be intent on being free and loose with people's details despite constant pressure to allow people to control access to that information. Each time they "fix" their privacy issues, they just shift it to another aspect. They aren't really changing anything - they're just moving things around. Until they get a massive smackdown that makes them realize it's not profitable to keep up this shell game with their user's private information, they will continue just moving things around, making "this" thing private while making "that" thing available to the public.
But, like I said, if it's really a massive concern, just don't sign up for a Facebook account...
I didn't say the market couldn't bear more smartphones - I said smartphone OSes. How many computer operating systems are there? How many are notable forces in the industry? A smartphone OS is little different and the reasons that the computer market can really only bear a small handful of serious contenders are the exact same reasons that the smartphone market can only bear a similarly small handful of smartphone OSes. Already we have a large handful of smartphone OSes as serious contenders in the marketplace. I would argue a few of them are going to slide as a few others further build their dominance. As people look to buy a smartphone, they will consider what their friends and coworkers use (the same sort of thinking that goes into the computer OS market) which will further polarize the market to a small handful. Samsung is thinking they can get into this "small handful" of smartphone OSes but they are too late to the party.
If they were smart, they would hitch their ride to one of the existing smartphone OSes and just focus on the hardware. Instead, they are going to invest resources into an OS that is almost certainly doomed to failure because it's too late to market.
Software. Not hardware. That's what this discussion is about. The software side, imho, has already got the contenders - they're just now trying to determine how much of the marketplace they will possess. New OSes are just going to fight over the crumbs.
Samsung is betting there's room for more in the smartphone market...
I may not be a high priced marketing exec or whatnot but I would take that bet. In fact, I'd happily wager that the smartphone market reached its limit a while ago... But, hey, good luck there Samsung.
Real developers have trouble getting even small numbers of apps approved...
The quantity of apps on the app store suggest that you're mistaken. A few developers have had some high profile troubles (made high profile because they complain loudly...) but how many thousands of apps have been approved? I think that number would suggest that it's not as hard as people believe to get an app approved. If you're doing bleeding edge work that pushes the boundaries of what Apple considers acceptable, then you might have troubles. But, if you're doing that sort of app design work then you should expect some troubles and understand you might need to tweak and adjust to accomplish your goal (unless, of course, your goal is to get your app rejected and raise a high profile stink about it...).
Regardless, thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of developers prove you wrong - it's not that difficult to get an app approved.
If people would walk away from the table if the text was made public then that is all the more reason to make the text public. Not because I want people to leave the talks but, if people are unwilling to participate in talks if it's open to public scrutiny then there is no more obvious an indication that those talks should not be happening.
...but of course there are questions about Google's true motivations behind knowing every site you visit.
No there aren't. You'd have to have been living under a rock for the past decade to have any questions about their motives. It's dead simple - they want to know what people are looking at so that they can better target people with advertising thereby increasing the value of their service. In return for offering various free services, all they ask for is some information on you so that they can better target advertising that interests _YOU_. It's not rocket science - it's just incredibly effective marketing.
To everyone who's about to make a "get a life" joke, may I remind you, you're about to post on a geek news website. While the level of dedications required to achieve this probably does mean this guy doesn't get out often, I'd wager that many of us here aren't all that different and could probably use lives of our own...
Ok, I know it isn't OSX installed on a PC but, when you've done that much work to make a computer that runs OSX, I think it qualifies as a Hackintosh.
And that's not a bad thing - I use a Mac every day and recently got myself an MSI Wind and set it up to dual boot Ubuntu and OSX so I'm all for a little Hackintosh love so don't take my above comment as a knock. If anything, I respect the work you did. But, let's call it what it is - you've hacked together some hardware to get a computer running OSX. It be a Hackintosh.
Most newspapers haven't clued into something very important - things are changing. You'd think that an industry that is focused on staying current with events would have noticed this, but they are dinosaurs holding on to a bygone methodology (hello music industry). The key thing is this - news is out there, in abundance. People don't _need_ to buy _that_ newspaper to get the news - they can get it from 1001 different sources. What the news industry needs to do is make people _want_ to get it from their source rather than someone else's source.
ted.com has a great lecture by Jacek Utko about using design to save newspapers. Now, I'm biased since I'm a graphic designer so any story about graphic design having a major beneficial impact on a product is one that is going to interest me but the results of Jacek's work are impressive. He made his clients newspapers special - different. There was a reason for people to _want_ to buy them to get the news from that source rather than the other sources available. It took a major leap of faith and some radical change but that's what's happening, whether people want it or not - change is going to happen. You can either sit back and try to hold on to the days gone by and let change happen to you or you can step up and proactively make some changes on your own. I suspect those that do the former are doomed to vanish into obscurity.
I doubt they'll ever give away a free computer as hypothesized but, if they did, I'd get one. Now, I'm Canadian so I don't have the same cultural distrust of Big Brother that most Americans have (not a knock - just an honest observation - it is a cultural difference between our two countries) so I'm sure that plays a big part of it but, to me, I'm willing to "pay" for a computer by giving Google some valuable information that they can use to better advertise to me. That is, after all, what they would be "buying" by giving me a netbook - they're buying information so that they can better appeal to me as a consumer of advertising. They are making their advertising work better. I'm ok with that. Sure, they may also find out little quirks about me that I'd rather they not discover. Yes, it opens up a plethora of privacy debates well-worth having. Yes, I know all of that. To me, however, it's worth it. I have nothing to hide from Google so I'm willing to give them what they're asking for if they're willing to give me something in return that I desire.
...that is mounted on a truck (which probably costs less than a 747, but who knows)...
Uh, yeah. But you probably need a plane to airlift the truck where it needs to go and, once you know where it is on the ground, it's a lot easier to avoid, thereby rendering the fancy laser kinda pointless. Or, instead, you can just build the laser into a plane which is far more mobile, able to get where it's needed and always ensure it has LOS on the target. But, yeah, the truck is cheaper.
I'm shocked - *SHOCKED* - I tell ya. I find it hard to believe that ComScore would report such a thing.
Yes, I know the numbers may be valid but when a company is reporting on another company, with whom they are partnered, I find it hard to invest any credibility in the report.
I don't know what his motivation is, other than to generate controversy and be a twit, but he's obviously full of shit - he's not even doing it himself. Do a google search for "Mark Cuban" and the third result is his own blog. If he's not even willing to do it, why would anyone else, even for the paltry amount of $1 million? Smoke and mirrors. I'm just curious why.
I'm being a bit of a smartass but the point is valid, none-the-less. Were there actual competition, then there might be significant differences between the companies but, for all intents and purposes, they're the same thing with different logos.
Uh, yes it does. This _IS_ a lost sale. No debate about it. People can debate whether or not an individual downloading a song to listen to it represents a lost sale (would they have bought it if they had to pay for it? Will they buy it after they try it out? etc. etc. etc.) but it cannot be debated, in any way, shape or form, that someone illegally selling copies of a song do not represent a lost sale. It _IS_ a lost sale. Period. There's a huge difference between a 14 year old kid downloading a song and someone setting up a website to sell the entire catalogue of The Beatles.
You do realize that a debate about the length of copyright is a different discussion from enforcement of copyright, right? Some of us think that the length of copyright should be dramatically shortened (to say the least...) AND also think that copyright holders should be encouraged to protect their copyrights when someone breaks copyright for the sole purpose of turning a profit. The two are completely different discussions. You are aware of that, right?
THIS is the sort of piracy that the RIAA (and member companies) should fight against. THIS is the sort of piracy that I think any intelligent human being opposes. THIS is the sort of copyright violation that the laws were written to combat.
Slashdot Mirror
I have no problem with unobtrusive ads that aren't all flashing animation and sound and which do not slow down my system with their overblown Flash garbage. If it does not interfere with my use of the web, I'm fine with them.
Until advertisers start delivering those ads, I'll keep using adblock.
Free speech, the right to bear arms, a common trait of all things that are actually rights is that they do not cost money.
Ok, I'll preface this with noting that, yes, I'm Canadian so feel free to dismiss my thoughts as those of a (as an American friend likes to joke) "tree-hugging Commie". You put free speech along side the right to bear arms as inalienable and "intangible" rights that do not cost money. The right to bear arms? Are you kidding me? You want the government to start handing out guns for free because it is a right that you were given by birth?
Look, I don't give a rats ass about the arguments for or against the right to bear arms but to imply that those rights and the right to free speech are somehow similar rights - rights that one possesses simply by the virtue of being born - is laughable.
Like I said, I'm a tree-hugging Commie so feel free to ignore, as you desire.
Expect both cases to be dropped and an announcement of mutual licensing between the two companies in ... about three or four weeks.
A classic example of patents being used defensively by Apple to counter Nokia's offensive use.
Anyone who thinks, for even a second, that Microsoft will respect your privacy _more_ than Google is a fool. I'm fine with anyone having an issue with Google's policy's regarding personal data but for anyone to think that Microsoft will be better is simply laughable.
While I realize that the best way to preserve your privacy online is to not sign up for sites like Facebook, the fact remains that Facebook appears to be intent on being free and loose with people's details despite constant pressure to allow people to control access to that information. Each time they "fix" their privacy issues, they just shift it to another aspect. They aren't really changing anything - they're just moving things around. Until they get a massive smackdown that makes them realize it's not profitable to keep up this shell game with their user's private information, they will continue just moving things around, making "this" thing private while making "that" thing available to the public.
But, like I said, if it's really a massive concern, just don't sign up for a Facebook account...
I didn't say the market couldn't bear more smartphones - I said smartphone OSes. How many computer operating systems are there? How many are notable forces in the industry? A smartphone OS is little different and the reasons that the computer market can really only bear a small handful of serious contenders are the exact same reasons that the smartphone market can only bear a similarly small handful of smartphone OSes. Already we have a large handful of smartphone OSes as serious contenders in the marketplace. I would argue a few of them are going to slide as a few others further build their dominance. As people look to buy a smartphone, they will consider what their friends and coworkers use (the same sort of thinking that goes into the computer OS market) which will further polarize the market to a small handful. Samsung is thinking they can get into this "small handful" of smartphone OSes but they are too late to the party.
If they were smart, they would hitch their ride to one of the existing smartphone OSes and just focus on the hardware. Instead, they are going to invest resources into an OS that is almost certainly doomed to failure because it's too late to market.
Software. Not hardware. That's what this discussion is about. The software side, imho, has already got the contenders - they're just now trying to determine how much of the marketplace they will possess. New OSes are just going to fight over the crumbs.
Samsung is betting there's room for more in the smartphone market...
I may not be a high priced marketing exec or whatnot but I would take that bet. In fact, I'd happily wager that the smartphone market reached its limit a while ago... But, hey, good luck there Samsung.
Real developers have trouble getting even small numbers of apps approved...
The quantity of apps on the app store suggest that you're mistaken. A few developers have had some high profile troubles (made high profile because they complain loudly...) but how many thousands of apps have been approved? I think that number would suggest that it's not as hard as people believe to get an app approved. If you're doing bleeding edge work that pushes the boundaries of what Apple considers acceptable, then you might have troubles. But, if you're doing that sort of app design work then you should expect some troubles and understand you might need to tweak and adjust to accomplish your goal (unless, of course, your goal is to get your app rejected and raise a high profile stink about it...).
Regardless, thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of developers prove you wrong - it's not that difficult to get an app approved.
If people would walk away from the table if the text was made public then that is all the more reason to make the text public. Not because I want people to leave the talks but, if people are unwilling to participate in talks if it's open to public scrutiny then there is no more obvious an indication that those talks should not be happening.
...but of course there are questions about Google's true motivations behind knowing every site you visit.
No there aren't. You'd have to have been living under a rock for the past decade to have any questions about their motives. It's dead simple - they want to know what people are looking at so that they can better target people with advertising thereby increasing the value of their service. In return for offering various free services, all they ask for is some information on you so that they can better target advertising that interests _YOU_. It's not rocket science - it's just incredibly effective marketing.
To everyone who's about to make a "get a life" joke, may I remind you, you're about to post on a geek news website. While the level of dedications required to achieve this probably does mean this guy doesn't get out often, I'd wager that many of us here aren't all that different and could probably use lives of our own...
I still want to do a Classic Mac modded with a Mac mini inside and an LCD replacing the old CRT.
If I knew more about hardware mods, I'd do that! That would RULE!
Ok, I know it isn't OSX installed on a PC but, when you've done that much work to make a computer that runs OSX, I think it qualifies as a Hackintosh.
And that's not a bad thing - I use a Mac every day and recently got myself an MSI Wind and set it up to dual boot Ubuntu and OSX so I'm all for a little Hackintosh love so don't take my above comment as a knock. If anything, I respect the work you did. But, let's call it what it is - you've hacked together some hardware to get a computer running OSX. It be a Hackintosh.
Most newspapers haven't clued into something very important - things are changing. You'd think that an industry that is focused on staying current with events would have noticed this, but they are dinosaurs holding on to a bygone methodology (hello music industry). The key thing is this - news is out there, in abundance. People don't _need_ to buy _that_ newspaper to get the news - they can get it from 1001 different sources. What the news industry needs to do is make people _want_ to get it from their source rather than someone else's source.
ted.com has a great lecture by Jacek Utko about using design to save newspapers. Now, I'm biased since I'm a graphic designer so any story about graphic design having a major beneficial impact on a product is one that is going to interest me but the results of Jacek's work are impressive. He made his clients newspapers special - different. There was a reason for people to _want_ to buy them to get the news from that source rather than the other sources available. It took a major leap of faith and some radical change but that's what's happening, whether people want it or not - change is going to happen. You can either sit back and try to hold on to the days gone by and let change happen to you or you can step up and proactively make some changes on your own. I suspect those that do the former are doomed to vanish into obscurity.
FUD
For those new to the internet, that would be Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. This sort of garbage would be a pretty classic example of it.
I doubt they'll ever give away a free computer as hypothesized but, if they did, I'd get one. Now, I'm Canadian so I don't have the same cultural distrust of Big Brother that most Americans have (not a knock - just an honest observation - it is a cultural difference between our two countries) so I'm sure that plays a big part of it but, to me, I'm willing to "pay" for a computer by giving Google some valuable information that they can use to better advertise to me. That is, after all, what they would be "buying" by giving me a netbook - they're buying information so that they can better appeal to me as a consumer of advertising. They are making their advertising work better. I'm ok with that. Sure, they may also find out little quirks about me that I'd rather they not discover. Yes, it opens up a plethora of privacy debates well-worth having. Yes, I know all of that. To me, however, it's worth it. I have nothing to hide from Google so I'm willing to give them what they're asking for if they're willing to give me something in return that I desire.
I think constantly lifting my finger would become tiring.
Seriously? Wow. And I thought I was in bad shape...
...that is mounted on a truck (which probably costs less than a 747, but who knows)...
Uh, yeah. But you probably need a plane to airlift the truck where it needs to go and, once you know where it is on the ground, it's a lot easier to avoid, thereby rendering the fancy laser kinda pointless. Or, instead, you can just build the laser into a plane which is far more mobile, able to get where it's needed and always ensure it has LOS on the target. But, yeah, the truck is cheaper.
I'm shocked - *SHOCKED* - I tell ya. I find it hard to believe that ComScore would report such a thing.
Yes, I know the numbers may be valid but when a company is reporting on another company, with whom they are partnered, I find it hard to invest any credibility in the report.
I don't know what his motivation is, other than to generate controversy and be a twit, but he's obviously full of shit - he's not even doing it himself. Do a google search for "Mark Cuban" and the third result is his own blog. If he's not even willing to do it, why would anyone else, even for the paltry amount of $1 million? Smoke and mirrors. I'm just curious why.
AT&T. Comcast. Same thing, different logo.
I'm being a bit of a smartass but the point is valid, none-the-less. Were there actual competition, then there might be significant differences between the companies but, for all intents and purposes, they're the same thing with different logos.
Uh, yes it does. This _IS_ a lost sale. No debate about it. People can debate whether or not an individual downloading a song to listen to it represents a lost sale (would they have bought it if they had to pay for it? Will they buy it after they try it out? etc. etc. etc.) but it cannot be debated, in any way, shape or form, that someone illegally selling copies of a song do not represent a lost sale. It _IS_ a lost sale. Period. There's a huge difference between a 14 year old kid downloading a song and someone setting up a website to sell the entire catalogue of The Beatles.
You do realize that a debate about the length of copyright is a different discussion from enforcement of copyright, right? Some of us think that the length of copyright should be dramatically shortened (to say the least...) AND also think that copyright holders should be encouraged to protect their copyrights when someone breaks copyright for the sole purpose of turning a profit. The two are completely different discussions. You are aware of that, right?
So, you say you wouldn't put too much weight on what they think and then repeat exactly what they think - that the defense is laughable. Uh, ok.
THIS is the sort of piracy that the RIAA (and member companies) should fight against. THIS is the sort of piracy that I think any intelligent human being opposes. THIS is the sort of copyright violation that the laws were written to combat.