On my Android phone, I'm very fond of Scandinavian Keyboard*, where a sideways swipe will toggle between Danish and English layouts and dictionaries. If I had a third, or non-Scandinavian language, I would be very frustrated (and tired of the menus!).
I live at the end of 5km of old copper, where the fastest ADSL speed seems to be about 600k. The smallest package I can get, however, is for 1mbit. It's not all that thrilling for a geek.:(
Would I rather have no connection? Err, no. Slow is fine, relatively speaking.
This is all part of a plan to limit upgrades to existing phones, in order to push people into buying new ones.
And it's working. I just bought a new phone, although my old phone is but a year old and cost a fortune.
Only, after I got burned by their i7500 Galaxy, I'm not one to ever buy another Samsung product, so my new phone is an HTC Desire. It doesn't seem like notknown86 is going to opt for a different Motorola phone, either. So yes, it's working, but not like I think they think it would.
Basically, it was about Google having made some changes to the kernel, which in turn meant that hardware companies supplying drivers for touch screens and so on had to specifically target the Android-linux variant. As a consequence, those drivers could not work under plain linux, and Google couldn't be bothered to do the work to integrate their changes upstream so it would work....or something along those lines.:-)
I seem to recall that there was quite a bit of undercurrent and background issues going on, so those articles/summaries certainly do not give the full picture.
And you trust Google to collaborate? You must not have read the articles about Google (whether more or less intentionally is debated) not publishing their kernel work back to the Linux community. Sorry...
It's such a shame that openmoko didn't take off. I would have loved to use it, but was very concerned that it wasn't really usable.
I'll be welcoming you to Android over at Androidforums.com, if you decide to switch. Android is okay, I guess, but decidedly more blingy and less functional than PalmOS used to be. I need a good plastic brain, and this is only almost it.
Is it a useful device, on a daily basis? Or is it more a geek novelty that's not _really_ useful as a primary phone? I guess the point is moot since they stopped making them... or what is the current status?
Regards, A slightly uncomfortable Google Android user
I frequently see people giving apps one star because it crashed on their phone, even though their phone is often either not on the supported list (usually because it lacks the resources to handle said app), or even if the developer specifically states that it doesn't work on handset X
In that case, the developer is still at fault for not specifying the proper prerequisites in the project manifest. If handset X can't handle the app, it should not be listed in the first place. (Of course, the process can be circumvented by handing around APK's manually.)
Alternately I see spammers everywhere giving five stars but not because they've even used the app, just because they want to post a link to their website in the comments.
This is a true problem, I agree. One aspect of the problem is that it's too cumbersome to individually mark each such occurrence as spam (one might envision stripping comments for links and link-like content, but it's not there yet).
In fact, the whole filtering of the market place is one of the few disappointments with my HTC
I agree again; although the fault here lies with Android rather than HTC. Filtering could (and should!) be done much better -- but it can't be done without adding complexity that will inevitably be "scary" for novice users.
(nitpick: Why do you say "my HTC"? Would you say "my Apple" if you had an iDevice?)
Out of interest (and because you seem like a rational debater), could you enlighten me on the subject of the Apple app store's rating system? I'm an Android user myself, and I don't know how things are in Apple land. In the Android Market, you can rate apps with 1-5 stars (1 being 'poor', 3 being 'average', and 5 being 'excellent').
You see, I would like to investigate if app stores could be better compared on quality rather than quantity. It seems to me that it would be better to have one thousand apps with a high average rating, than a million apps with an appalling average rating.
There are some Android Market ratings available, although I'm sure more detailed ones can be gotten hold of. I do note that only one fifth of all rated apps have a single star, and two fifth have the highest rating. This is based on nearly 900.000 ratings, but I do not know the ratio of rated vs. unrated apps.
> PC users liable for TV licence? Yup. Last year, the Danish broadcaster (DR) was very happy to see a new bill passed, that makes every household required to pay the full license fee (~£300/year) if they have at least one of: - a television (even if used only with a C64; if it "can" receive a signal, it is assumed to do so) - an internet connection of 265kbit or faster (apparently, that's all you need to watch best-quality live tv; I wouldn't know, it only works on Windows, and they only offer a few shows)
Yes, you read that right -- if you have a 3G phone, you're eligible. Congratulations!
Curious: Would it ever be ok for Google to disable a malicious app remotely?
No, it would not. Simply put, "hands off my property". I am not "licensing" the phone, the OS, or the application in the way that one is "licensed" to use a copy of Windows. It's mine, plain and simple.
But I'm not saying it's all good. If that were the general case, it would be a whole lot easier to fight botnets and spam sources; but it's not, so it's not.
Corporations and governments have a right to ignore their consumers' privacy, and anyone who actually notices and complains is just supposed to leave, just because most people haven't noticed yet?
Wait wait wait. Let me split that up:
Corporations do not have a "right to ignore their consumers' privacy". Many businesses have their customers (no wait, clients (no wait, mere consumers)) explicitly sign away their rights in order to do business in the first place.
Governments may or may not have that right, but they certainly have an obligation to respect their consumers' (err, I take it you meant citizens') rights. Otherwise it'd just be world-wide China.
Also:
That's like saying.. if you don't like the government illegally spying on citizens, then move your ass to another country
Yeah, well, the thing is, where are you gonna go?All countries these days insist on surveillance, or overtly daft and insecure identity certificates, or whatever your specific beef is. When slashdotters on occasion suggest the Supremacy of Sealand, that's not for fun and a sea breeze, that's in desperation.
Of course, this argument applies equally well to businesses. If you don't want remote-removal capability, then don't choose an iPhone, or a Kindle, or, evidently, any Android-based phone. If you also don't want to be bound to a Mac or Windows OS, then don't choose an iPhone, WinMo, or Symbian-based phone....but if, after all this, you still do want to have a pda and/or phone, what is there to choose from, now that OpenMoko is dead?
They asked you in the Terms of Service you agreed to when you used the Android Market for the first time.
That's bullshit. They didn't ask you for specific permission to delete this particular application immediately before performing the action.
Google's actions are a much more adverse serious privacy violation, than the security researcher's.
Hmm... (emphasis mine)
2.4 From time to time, Google may discover a Product on the Market that violates the Android Market Developer Distribution Agreement or other legal agreements, laws, regulations or policies. You agree that in such an instance Google retains the right to remotely remove those applications from your Device at its sole discretion and without notice to you.
As for the invasion of privacy, I'm in total agreement with you. I was one of those who shook their heads in disbelief when Amazon removed books from their customers' devices. I would never get a Kindle, or an iPhone, because of this kind of 'rights'.
The blasted thing is, I thought I did read that agreement before I chose the Android platform as a replacement for my aging Palm pda. I don't know if this is a later addition or if I just missed it. If I had spotted that section, I don't know if I had chosen Android.
... but then there would probably have been nothing else left for me to choose. I mean, where can a person go these days, to obtain a truly personal device? We have had them, but industrial progress is apparently not for the better of all parties involved.
Anonymous does not necessarily mean "has no name", although I can see how slashdotters are being conditioned to think so. Anonymous merely means to keep ones identities separate from and unconnected to one another.
You can have a perfectly anonymous identity with assorted social perks such as a recognizable name and verifiability/accountability; just disconnected from any other identities you might have. The tricky part is *keeping* them separated (plain human sloppiness is what got most old-school hackers caught).
Slashdot Mirror
Seconded.
On my Android phone, I'm very fond of Scandinavian Keyboard*, where a sideways swipe will toggle between Danish and English layouts and dictionaries. If I had a third, or non-Scandinavian language, I would be very frustrated (and tired of the menus!).
*(no affiliation, of course, just a happy user)
I live at the end of 5km of old copper, where the fastest ADSL speed seems to be about 600k. The smallest package I can get, however, is for 1mbit. It's not all that thrilling for a geek. :(
Would I rather have no connection? Err, no. Slow is fine, relatively speaking.
Well I never ... saw a fly soar, or just attempt to glide, even. I have a new respect of flies!
(...no I don't.)
If it's still there.
I mean, who's been guarding it?
Why, a giant horde of bioconcretious structures! (dun-dun dunnnn!)
Oh wait, those rusticles are why Titanic (almost) isn't still there...
The Wikipedia claims the 'e' was indeed for education.
Perhaps you're thinking of the Macintosh LC ("psst, 'low cost', but don't tell anyone"), which was the first modular Mac?
This is all part of a plan to limit upgrades to existing phones, in order to push people into buying new ones.
And it's working. I just bought a new phone, although my old phone is but a year old and cost a fortune.
Only, after I got burned by their i7500 Galaxy, I'm not one to ever buy another Samsung product, so my new phone is an HTC Desire. It doesn't seem like notknown86 is going to opt for a different Motorola phone, either. So yes, it's working, but not like I think they think it would.
Basically, it was about Google having made some changes to the kernel, which in turn meant that hardware companies supplying drivers for touch screens and so on had to specifically target the Android-linux variant. As a consequence, those drivers could not work under plain linux, and Google couldn't be bothered to do the work to integrate their changes upstream so it would work. ...or something along those lines. :-)
Here are a few of the articles that popped up:
* http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/02/03/1932222/Android-and-the-Linux-Kernel-Community?from=rss
* http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/04/16/2131215/Devs-Discuss-Androids-Possible-Readmission-To-Linux-Kernel
I seem to recall that there was quite a bit of undercurrent and background issues going on, so those articles/summaries certainly do not give the full picture.
And you would trust China to Collaborate?
And you trust Google to collaborate? You must not have read the articles about Google (whether more or less intentionally is debated) not publishing their kernel work back to the Linux community. Sorry...
You are, I hope, aware of the many Hypercard derivatives and recreations...?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperCard#See_also
It's such a shame that openmoko didn't take off. I would have loved to use it, but was very concerned that it wasn't really usable.
I'll be welcoming you to Android over at Androidforums.com, if you decide to switch. Android is okay, I guess, but decidedly more blingy and less functional than PalmOS used to be. I need a good plastic brain, and this is only almost it.
Thanks for sharing!
Oh look, an Openmoko user! (No sarcasm, really)
Is it a useful device, on a daily basis? Or is it more a geek novelty that's not _really_ useful as a primary phone? ... or what is the current status?
I guess the point is moot since they stopped making them
Regards,
A slightly uncomfortable Google Android user
... but that's using the stock firmware. I assume that using any other (say, Tomato) would significantly alter the odds to the attackers disadvantage.
I frequently see people giving apps one star because it crashed on their phone, even though their phone is often either not on the supported list (usually because it lacks the resources to handle said app), or even if the developer specifically states that it doesn't work on handset X
In that case, the developer is still at fault for not specifying the proper prerequisites in the project manifest. If handset X can't handle the app, it should not be listed in the first place. (Of course, the process can be circumvented by handing around APK's manually.)
Alternately I see spammers everywhere giving five stars but not because they've even used the app, just because they want to post a link to their website in the comments.
This is a true problem, I agree. One aspect of the problem is that it's too cumbersome to individually mark each such occurrence as spam (one might envision stripping comments for links and link-like content, but it's not there yet).
In fact, the whole filtering of the market place is one of the few disappointments with my HTC
I agree again; although the fault here lies with Android rather than HTC. Filtering could (and should!) be done much better -- but it can't be done without adding complexity that will inevitably be "scary" for novice users.
(nitpick: Why do you say "my HTC"? Would you say "my Apple" if you had an iDevice?)
Those are brilliant! Now I know whence my boss gets his presentation-stuffing!
I can't wait to use these in next years' personal business commitments document! >:-D
Out of interest (and because you seem like a rational debater), could you enlighten me on the subject of the Apple app store's rating system? I'm an Android user myself, and I don't know how things are in Apple land. In the Android Market, you can rate apps with 1-5 stars (1 being 'poor', 3 being 'average', and 5 being 'excellent').
You see, I would like to investigate if app stores could be better compared on quality rather than quantity. It seems to me that it would be better to have one thousand apps with a high average rating, than a million apps with an appalling average rating.
There are some Android Market ratings available, although I'm sure more detailed ones can be gotten hold of. I do note that only one fifth of all rated apps have a single star, and two fifth have the highest rating. This is based on nearly 900.000 ratings, but I do not know the ratio of rated vs. unrated apps.
Okay, hand in your Geek card. It's obvious you haven't even read the FAQ.
http://slashdot.org/faq/slashmeta.shtml#sm700 --> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/02/14/143254
It's definitely "byran", or rather "byrån", that being the Swedish word for "bureau".
Well, if the ship's not sinking, the rats must be the ones not leaving...
> PC users liable for TV licence?
Yup. Last year, the Danish broadcaster (DR) was very happy to see a new bill passed, that makes every household required to pay the full license fee (~£300/year) if they have at least one of:
- a television (even if used only with a C64; if it "can" receive a signal, it is assumed to do so)
- an internet connection of 265kbit or faster (apparently, that's all you need to watch best-quality live tv; I wouldn't know, it only works on Windows, and they only offer a few shows)
Yes, you read that right -- if you have a 3G phone, you're eligible. Congratulations!
Curious: Would it ever be ok for Google to disable a malicious app remotely?
No, it would not. Simply put, "hands off my property". I am not "licensing" the phone, the OS, or the application in the way that one is "licensed" to use a copy of Windows. It's mine, plain and simple.
But I'm not saying it's all good. If that were the general case, it would be a whole lot easier to fight botnets and spam sources; but it's not, so it's not.
Corporations and governments have a right to ignore their consumers' privacy, and anyone who actually notices and complains is just supposed to leave, just because most people haven't noticed yet?
Wait wait wait. Let me split that up:
Corporations do not have a "right to ignore their consumers' privacy". Many businesses have their customers (no wait, clients (no wait, mere consumers)) explicitly sign away their rights in order to do business in the first place.
Governments may or may not have that right, but they certainly have an obligation to respect their consumers' (err, I take it you meant citizens') rights. Otherwise it'd just be world-wide China.
Also:
That's like saying.. if you don't like the government illegally spying on citizens, then move your ass to another country
Yeah, well, the thing is, where are you gonna go? All countries these days insist on surveillance, or overtly daft and insecure identity certificates, or whatever your specific beef is. When slashdotters on occasion suggest the Supremacy of Sealand, that's not for fun and a sea breeze, that's in desperation.
Of course, this argument applies equally well to businesses. If you don't want remote-removal capability, then don't choose an iPhone, or a Kindle, or, evidently, any Android-based phone. If you also don't want to be bound to a Mac or Windows OS, then don't choose an iPhone, WinMo, or Symbian-based phone. ...but if, after all this, you still do want to have a pda and/or phone, what is there to choose from, now that OpenMoko is dead?
They asked you in the Terms of Service you agreed to when you used the Android Market for the first time.
That's bullshit. They didn't ask you for specific permission to delete this particular application immediately before performing the action.
Google's actions are a much more adverse serious privacy violation, than the security researcher's.
Hmm... (emphasis mine)
2.4 From time to time, Google may discover a Product on the Market that violates the Android Market Developer Distribution Agreement or other legal agreements, laws, regulations or policies. You agree that in such an instance Google retains the right to remotely remove those applications from your Device at its sole discretion and without notice to you.
As for the invasion of privacy, I'm in total agreement with you. I was one of those who shook their heads in disbelief when Amazon removed books from their customers' devices. I would never get a Kindle, or an iPhone, because of this kind of 'rights'.
The blasted thing is, I thought I did read that agreement before I chose the Android platform as a replacement for my aging Palm pda. I don't know if this is a later addition or if I just missed it. If I had spotted that section, I don't know if I had chosen Android.
Consider me your fan, so it's not as bad as all that.
Hmm, it does not seem that fans are indicated in the way that friends and foes are?
Although ... katanas and blindfolds does sound interesting!
You, sir, just made my list.
Anonymous does not necessarily mean "has no name", although I can see how slashdotters are being conditioned to think so. Anonymous merely means to keep ones identities separate from and unconnected to one another.
You can have a perfectly anonymous identity with assorted social perks such as a recognizable name and verifiability/accountability; just disconnected from any other identities you might have. The tricky part is *keeping* them separated (plain human sloppiness is what got most old-school hackers caught).