it would not be a total surprise to learn that they are planning on using their comparatively pervasive handsets in order to produce their own traffic data..
Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years.
My iPhone also has a setting to enable or disable collection of this traffic data. I have it disabled:)
What I often end up doing on my Kindle (regular e-ink kind), is highlighting a portion of something I want to look up. Then I can go look it up later, the kindle saves your highlights.
Re:That's why I like the basic Kindle
on
The eBook Backlash
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· Score: 1
I've had terrible luck with PDFs on my Kindle. I've tried to convert them with various utilities and they always come out horrible looking. The problem is the screen size, and the fact that the Kindle basically displays them as images. Maybe the big Kindle DX would be better for them.
The Kindle is totally awesome for eBooks, but I just print PDFs if I need them to be portable.
Re:That's why I like the basic Kindle
on
The eBook Backlash
·
· Score: 1
I have a 3rd gen Kindle (Kindle Keyboard). I've been told it's a shitty tablet. When I respond "it's not a tablet, it's an e-reader," people get it.
It should also be noted that they clearly state that they're missing this shot - it says it right in the main menu where you select the episode. They aren't trying to pull a fast one here.
But, Apple seems to add new features with every $30 update. MS Service Packs don't tend to add features (XP SP2 being a notable exception), mostly they're just rolling up hotfixes.
I'm also a big fan of Arp. I pay $24/month for 768mb of RAM, 20GB of disk space, plus a/29 block of IPv4 and a/48 block of IPv6. Great support, although I've only ever needed it once. The guy who runs it hangs out on IRC a lot so you can ask questions there too. You get SSH access to the *console* (like a serial console, in case you get locked out).
The most interesting thing (to me, anyway) is that they will not be transmitting this via weather radio. Many (if not most) weather radios these days constantly listen for the EAS SAME tones (the ominous sounding tones that repeat three times at before the message starts), and can sound an audible and visual alarm when it occurs.
For example, if a tornado warning is issued for an area, you can receive the alert with your weather radio, whether it's "turned on" or not, unlike with TV and radio, where you must be listening to find out.
Weather Radios do have the ability to display messages for civil emergencies - for example, the one I use can display things like "nuclear emergency" and other types of non-weather messages.
Apparently, there's no way for them to get this to the national weather service for rebroadcast. Unfortunate.
My favorite feature: I don't have to manually transfer photos I take to my computer anymore like a digital camera. I take the picture on my phone, and the photo appears on my computer.
Here's another cool thing about CrashPlan: You can manage the configuration settings on all of the computers under your account from their website, in case some computers are in remote locations.
I'm not the biggest fan of Outlook (or OWA), but we use it at work, and OWA is actually pretty decent in web browser support. It works in IE of course, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari (and maybe other browsers that I haven't tried). According to this site, as of June 2011, that's 97% of the browser market share.
Re:Joe Sixpack isn't even using his 1080p right
on
Beyond HDTV
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· Score: 1
From what I've been told, LED (even side-lit) monitors can still provide better contrast. I don't have enough attention to detail to really notice a difference. Also - maybe this is a get off my lawn moment - the latest monitor I have (Asus VE228h) which is LED-backlit, is REALLY bright. Normally, I might think that's a good thing, but in order to not hurt my eyes, I have the brightness turned down to something like 10% - and even at that brightness, it's still as bright as most other recent monitors I've used.
Re:Joe Sixpack isn't even using his 1080p right
on
Beyond HDTV
·
· Score: 1
You're seeing black bars on movies because the aspect ratio of most films is 1.85:1, which is slightly wider than 16:9. HDTV is usually 16:9, so for that, you wouldn't see black bars.
That's true that it had "well-publicized problems," although my anecdotal evidence from everyone I know that has the iPhone 4 shows that people are generally happy with it.
I'm afraid you'll find that an iPhone 4 will be far from useless once the iPhone 5 comes out. Just saying.
Not only that, but the now nearly-two-year-old 3GS will be far from useless, iOS 5 actually runs pretty well on them (I am, of course, making an assumption that iOS 5 won't get worse for the final release).
You do realize that people with older iphones can't upgrade to the newest versions of iOS, right? And that Apple let people with the 3G upgrade to 4.0 and it caused their phones to be almost completely unusable? So it's not exactly like there is no fragmentation on the iPhone.
I won't argue the performance aspect... my roommate had a 3G and it basically became unusable until they came out with later versions, and even then it still wasn't great.
Now, this may be splitting hairs, but the 3G was two years old when iOS 4.0 came out, and the upgrade was still made available, although certain features were held back on that device, likely due to hardware limitations. That's two years of OS updates.
Android 2.2.2 came out in May 2010, and 2.3 came out in December of 2010, 7 months later, and there are likely some devices out there that will never get a 2.2 -> 2.3 upgrade. (Sorry, I don't have the 2.2.0 release date handy).
So yes, there's fragmentation on the iPhone, but as of today, there's only one generation of the iPhone that can't run the latest OS. In a few months, that will change of course, the 3G will be 3 years old at that time and will not get iOS 5. The T-Mobile G1 was released in 2008, same year the iPhone 3G was released, it's still stuck on Android 1.6 unless you root it, and from what I've heard, if you do root and update it, it's barely functional.
This fast obsolescence is nothing new in the mobile phone industry and it's certainly not specific to Apple.
It costs significantly more than that, an amount which you pay off over the next 2 years by virtue of the binding service contract you sign with the service provider.
That isn't just Apple, it's every phone. Even the cheap or free flip phones cost significantly more than what you pay for them.
In the US, our carriers do subsidies, and you commit to a contract term in return for that subsidy. It's always worked that way (at least as long as I've owned a cell phone, since about 1998)
You're always free to pay the full price for the phone and not lock into a contract. The only difference is that with other brands of phone, the carrier will usually unlock it for you after a period of time, but that won't happen with Apple.
I think the full prices for the iPhone are $599 and $699, if memory serves me.
Slashdot Mirror
it would not be a total surprise to learn that they are planning on using their comparatively pervasive handsets in order to produce their own traffic data..
Apple has been transparent about this.
See question 8 here: https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/04/27Apple-Q-A-on-Location-Data.html
Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years.
My iPhone also has a setting to enable or disable collection of this traffic data. I have it disabled :)
What I often end up doing on my Kindle (regular e-ink kind), is highlighting a portion of something I want to look up. Then I can go look it up later, the kindle saves your highlights.
I've had terrible luck with PDFs on my Kindle. I've tried to convert them with various utilities and they always come out horrible looking. The problem is the screen size, and the fact that the Kindle basically displays them as images. Maybe the big Kindle DX would be better for them.
The Kindle is totally awesome for eBooks, but I just print PDFs if I need them to be portable.
I have a 3rd gen Kindle (Kindle Keyboard). I've been told it's a shitty tablet. When I respond "it's not a tablet, it's an e-reader," people get it.
It should also be noted that they clearly state that they're missing this shot - it says it right in the main menu where you select the episode. They aren't trying to pull a fast one here.
But, Apple seems to add new features with every $30 update. MS Service Packs don't tend to add features (XP SP2 being a notable exception), mostly they're just rolling up hotfixes.
Apple's justification for originally only supporting the Mac was that they thought it would help drive Mac sales. I don't know if it did or not.
I'm also a big fan of Arp. I pay $24/month for 768mb of RAM, 20GB of disk space, plus a /29 block of IPv4 and a /48 block of IPv6. Great support, although I've only ever needed it once. The guy who runs it hangs out on IRC a lot so you can ask questions there too. You get SSH access to the *console* (like a serial console, in case you get locked out).
Overall, I can't speak highly enough of them.
Ask Siri to open the pod bay doors.
Yeah, that's always terrible. If I can only get a book in PDF, I just buy the paper copy :)
I thought you could convert ePub to mobi with Calbre? I haven't tried it myself though.
The Kindle can read PDFs. It just can't do ePub - although as I understand it, ePub can be easily converted to a format readable on the Kindle.
The most interesting thing (to me, anyway) is that they will not be transmitting this via weather radio. Many (if not most) weather radios these days constantly listen for the EAS SAME tones (the ominous sounding tones that repeat three times at before the message starts), and can sound an audible and visual alarm when it occurs.
For example, if a tornado warning is issued for an area, you can receive the alert with your weather radio, whether it's "turned on" or not, unlike with TV and radio, where you must be listening to find out.
Weather Radios do have the ability to display messages for civil emergencies - for example, the one I use can display things like "nuclear emergency" and other types of non-weather messages.
Apparently, there's no way for them to get this to the national weather service for rebroadcast. Unfortunate.
My favorite feature: I don't have to manually transfer photos I take to my computer anymore like a digital camera. I take the picture on my phone, and the photo appears on my computer.
Citation?
Here's another cool thing about CrashPlan: You can manage the configuration settings on all of the computers under your account from their website, in case some computers are in remote locations.
I'm not the biggest fan of Outlook (or OWA), but we use it at work, and OWA is actually pretty decent in web browser support. It works in IE of course, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari (and maybe other browsers that I haven't tried). According to this site, as of June 2011, that's 97% of the browser market share.
From what I've been told, LED (even side-lit) monitors can still provide better contrast. I don't have enough attention to detail to really notice a difference. Also - maybe this is a get off my lawn moment - the latest monitor I have (Asus VE228h) which is LED-backlit, is REALLY bright. Normally, I might think that's a good thing, but in order to not hurt my eyes, I have the brightness turned down to something like 10% - and even at that brightness, it's still as bright as most other recent monitors I've used.
You're seeing black bars on movies because the aspect ratio of most films is 1.85:1, which is slightly wider than 16:9. HDTV is usually 16:9, so for that, you wouldn't see black bars.
Many common aspect ratios are listed here.
That's true that it had "well-publicized problems," although my anecdotal evidence from everyone I know that has the iPhone 4 shows that people are generally happy with it.
I'm afraid you'll find that an iPhone 4 will be far from useless once the iPhone 5 comes out. Just saying.
Not only that, but the now nearly-two-year-old 3GS will be far from useless, iOS 5 actually runs pretty well on them (I am, of course, making an assumption that iOS 5 won't get worse for the final release).
You do realize that people with older iphones can't upgrade to the newest versions of iOS, right? And that Apple let people with the 3G upgrade to 4.0 and it caused their phones to be almost completely unusable? So it's not exactly like there is no fragmentation on the iPhone.
I won't argue the performance aspect... my roommate had a 3G and it basically became unusable until they came out with later versions, and even then it still wasn't great.
Now, this may be splitting hairs, but the 3G was two years old when iOS 4.0 came out, and the upgrade was still made available, although certain features were held back on that device, likely due to hardware limitations. That's two years of OS updates.
Android 2.2.2 came out in May 2010, and 2.3 came out in December of 2010, 7 months later, and there are likely some devices out there that will never get a 2.2 -> 2.3 upgrade. (Sorry, I don't have the 2.2.0 release date handy).
So yes, there's fragmentation on the iPhone, but as of today, there's only one generation of the iPhone that can't run the latest OS. In a few months, that will change of course, the 3G will be 3 years old at that time and will not get iOS 5. The T-Mobile G1 was released in 2008, same year the iPhone 3G was released, it's still stuck on Android 1.6 unless you root it, and from what I've heard, if you do root and update it, it's barely functional.
This fast obsolescence is nothing new in the mobile phone industry and it's certainly not specific to Apple.
Yes, please elaborate. My kindle is the current generation and it's perfectly readable in broad daylight.
Who's your provider?
It costs significantly more than that, an amount which you pay off over the next 2 years by virtue of the binding service contract you sign with the service provider.
That isn't just Apple, it's every phone. Even the cheap or free flip phones cost significantly more than what you pay for them.
In the US, our carriers do subsidies, and you commit to a contract term in return for that subsidy. It's always worked that way (at least as long as I've owned a cell phone, since about 1998)
You're always free to pay the full price for the phone and not lock into a contract. The only difference is that with other brands of phone, the carrier will usually unlock it for you after a period of time, but that won't happen with Apple.
I think the full prices for the iPhone are $599 and $699, if memory serves me.
- Dave