Google initially built its reputation by offering vanilla Android at affordable prices and that made Nexus 4 and 5 hugely popular devices.
Then for some reasons they decided to compete with Samsung and other big players by offering the largely insipid (in terms of features) Nexus 6 and it's not like this phone tanked, but it was several times less popular than the preceding Nexuses.
With the Nexus 5x and 6p Google seemingly lost the remainder of common sense by offering them at the prices comparable to first tier smartphones like Galaxy S6 or Note 5.
Perhaps Google needs to return to its roots instead of offering barebone phones (no SD slot, no removable battery, no dual sim support, very basic camera setup) for very high prices, since we already have companies which out-android'ed Google: I'm talking about ZTE Axon 7 and OnePlus 3.
The Nexus 5 (2013), which packs in a Snapdragon 800 SoC coupled with 2GB of RAM and 5-inch full-HD display, won't be receiving Android Nougat update
iOS haters always say that you should only buy Google approved(tm) Android devices to stay up to day, and here it is, Google shitting on you. A perfect by today's standards device is no longer receiving updates because... because nothing. An organization which earns billions of dollars every quarter cannot afford to maintain its older but perfectly capable devices.
Hopefully one day Android will become a true OS vs. what we have now: basically a heavily modified lego for each and every device. There's no Android OS which you can throw at a random ARM device and have it running with all the components functioning properly (camera, WiFi, 3G/4G, sensors, storage, etc.)
The original poster was indeed right, and you're clearly trolling. But then there are too many Linux fanatics on./ so I'm not surprised.
Google may replace the Linux kernel on all Androids on a whim and no one will bat an eye. So much for a billion Linux installations. Oh, and Google uses their own heavily patched version of the Linux kernel. Show me the phones running the vanilla Linux kernel. None? Great, now fuck off.
I'm still happily running KDE 3.5.10. I know it contains security vulnerabilities but I have JS completely disabled in KDE settings and I never use Konqueror to browse the web.
Every time when I try KDE 5 I face so many visual glitches and inconsistencies along with a few dozen of bugs, I give up right away. Besides I cannot understand why KDE 5 needs two versions of KDE and QT libraries. I mean I understand that some KDE components haven't been upgraded to KDE 5 frameworks or whatever their name is, but KDE 5 is... TWO freaking years old.
And let me tell you this: plasma sucks big time. It's a crashing monstrosity with monstrous memory and disk requirements. For some reasons some KDE devs thought KDE would be useful as a platform for tablets but I don't know a single person on this planet who runs KDE on their tablets. So, now we have this semi-usable crashing shit instead of something lean and fast.
On my new PCs I happily use more or less dead XFCE (not actually dead but dormant) for the simple fact that it's still maintained and included in distros. Of course there's Trinity but speaking frankly I don't trust it. I'm not in a position to audit their code (I'm not a C++ programmer) and some of their design decisions are simply horrible - e.g. they renamed most QT/KDE classes and added their own prefixes without any reasons whatsoever. It's not like KDE3.5/QT3 are still developed and there could be any conflict.
I guess the real reason for the renaming was that TDE's core developer was afraid someone would start stealing his code to patch ages old KDE 3.5.10. The net result is that a dozen of people in the world use TDE and most distros shun it. Had they continued patching KDE3.5/QT3 to make them usable again on modern Linux distros, distros would have included them right away.
If bringing in the car analogy, it's like people bemoaning the fact that automobile companies often refresh their cars... every fucking year. Well, the truth is they really do, and no one forces you to update your car every 12 months.
> Have Slashdot readers seen any performance issues while playing games on Linux?
Which games? Most games for Linux are Indies and Linux runs them just fine.
Under Linux you won't be able to play the native versions of Overwatch, Doom 4, Quantum Break, or any version of GTA, CoD, Battlefield, Colin McRay Rally, Crysis, Deus Ex, FarCry, Hitman, Mafia etc. etc. etc.
While I commend the guys at BitDefender for finding this vulnerability its severity as a tad overstated.
Most if not all virtual machines are not encrypted, so your hosting provider has full access to your encryption keys which means there are easier ways to decrypt/intercept traffic.
Presumably you can solve this problem by using full disk encryption but then you need to find a way to pass your encryption password to your virtual host and you will surely do that through the means provided by your hosting provider, which means your password will be intercepted en route and again your hosting provider will have full access to the disk image.
In short you cannot trust anything you're not running from your own physically secured environment.
And even in your own fully secured physical environment you're still f*cked.
What we have now is various AI networks/algorithms/etc which cannot reason, cannot really use memory (in a sense how human beings do that) and which are less "intelligent" than earthworms with three hundred neurons.
Which automatically begs a question: if a creature with 300 neurons is more intelligent than our intelligent algorithms then maybe we still light years away from implementing proper AI, aka general AI.
For some reasons media has conflated AI to general AI, but these two things are a hundred orders of magnitude different.
That's what I foresee with the current technology.
Jokes aside, do we have to send human beings to Mars? What about sending robots first to build at least partially self-sustaining habitats? What about finding ways to protect people from the cosmic radiation during at least three years (x2) long journey to and from the planet? What about ways of bringing them back? What about the storage of supplies, more importantly food, for six years and the mass of a rocket? What about the loss of muscles and bones mass? Last time I checked currently we have no means of creating artificial gravity in space.
Dozens of very hard to resolve question and somehow Elon claims we'll have them resolved by 2024. Unbelievable.
which has very minimal, I can even say non-existing, QA/QC and no unit tests at all.
Not so greatest then, considering the number of regressions in each kernel release.
Not so greatest then, considering that people get tired of adjusting their code to new APIs which inevitably leads to even more regressions.
Not so greatest then, considering that bug reports in bugzilla.kernel.org often receive zero attention and LKML posts are lost in the noise of hundreds of patches published every day.
You know, Greg, you don't sound convincing. You sound like a marketer of some dietary supplement.
I know this comment will be modded to hell by rabid Linux fanboys, but I'm just tired of this BS remarks made by open source advocates. The truth of course is a lot less exciting.
when they introduced a mandatory home page peddling their additional software. Too bad this app is still the most useful file manager in Android but luckily you can replace it with something less intrusive by giving up on certain non-essential features.
Also if you still cannot live without it, uninstall it and manually install one of its old shit-free versions from here. Make sure you've disabled automatic updates in the Google Play (Store) app.
to get a broader comprehension of language as a whole
There's still zero comprehension: Google engineers are teaching their AI the relationships between words, yet the AI has no vague clue what those words actually mean. It's like trying to teach a toddler to create electrical circuits - they might even work, but the toddler won't understand what he/she's actually doing.
Understanding the meaning of words and the context, creating meaningful sentences using the former concepts - that's what a real AI would be but we are still 20 years away from that.
99% of people out there don't understand what they are and they are for, so, unlikely.
The two most important reasons are: firstly, Google loves to peddle its browser whenever possible (they own the largest ad network for that), and, secondly, IE has a reputation of being slow and unreliable.
As for the Edge browser - it is really fast but its fonts rendering on low DPI screens is beyond awful (just like all other UWP apps). Also its UI is way too cumbersome for a lot of people.
At the same time with the advent of Windows 10 Microsoft has stopped caring which browser you actually use - they own your PC and your data.
The only chance of "hearing" from an alien civilization is that they keep on wasting absolutely excessive amounts of energy on beaming absolutely useless radio signals to the entire universe. Would we do that for thousands or millions of years? No. Would they? No.
The current estimates of the size of the observable universe: 93 billion light years across. The age of the universe: roughly 14 billion years. That means there are possible civilizations out there whose broadcasts will never reach us due to the expansion of the universe.
The fact is there are dozens of reasons for civilizations of the universe to never encounter one another and I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing.
I wonder why it's not mentioned. From Wikipedia, "the BAM's costs were estimated at $14 billion" at 1991 prices, and considering inflation, that would be 14*1.75 = $24.5 billions in today's prices. Other websites mention up to 2.35 ratio which will increase the cost to $33 billion.
In most gadgets the USB plug is the most flimsy part which breaks far too often and now they want us to abuse it even more? Also, tell me, how are we supposed to wear headphones and charge the phone at the same time (wireless charging is often not an option)?
A 3.5mm jack is sturdy as hell, perhaps that's what all this fuss is about. They want us to replace our headphones, gadgets and pay service centers a lot more.
Last but note least this "upgrade" will cost the consumer an arm and a leg, since from now on headphones will have to include their own DAC chip which doesn't come for free.
Slashdot Mirror
Google initially built its reputation by offering vanilla Android at affordable prices and that made Nexus 4 and 5 hugely popular devices.
Then for some reasons they decided to compete with Samsung and other big players by offering the largely insipid (in terms of features) Nexus 6 and it's not like this phone tanked, but it was several times less popular than the preceding Nexuses.
With the Nexus 5x and 6p Google seemingly lost the remainder of common sense by offering them at the prices comparable to first tier smartphones like Galaxy S6 or Note 5.
Perhaps Google needs to return to its roots instead of offering barebone phones (no SD slot, no removable battery, no dual sim support, very basic camera setup) for very high prices, since we already have companies which out-android'ed Google: I'm talking about ZTE Axon 7 and OnePlus 3.
What does this word mean in regard to the Linux kernel? Or it should be applied to Linux/GNU?
Sorry, this article is some marketing BS. I've no idea how it found its way to /.
I perfectly understand that.
For most unsavvy people though, "no new major OS update" = "no updates at all".
"Your phone isn't running Android 7.0? Wow, what a turd!"
iOS haters always say that you should only buy Google approved(tm) Android devices to stay up to day, and here it is, Google shitting on you. A perfect by today's standards device is no longer receiving updates because ... because nothing. An organization which earns billions of dollars every quarter cannot afford to maintain its older but perfectly capable devices.
Hopefully one day Android will become a true OS vs. what we have now: basically a heavily modified lego for each and every device. There's no Android OS which you can throw at a random ARM device and have it running with all the components functioning properly (camera, WiFi, 3G/4G, sensors, storage, etc.)
Android is not Linux/GNU.
The original poster was indeed right, and you're clearly trolling. But then there are too many Linux fanatics on ./ so I'm not surprised.
Google may replace the Linux kernel on all Androids on a whim and no one will bat an eye. So much for a billion Linux installations. Oh, and Google uses their own heavily patched version of the Linux kernel. Show me the phones running the vanilla Linux kernel. None? Great, now fuck off.
KDE(5) is indeed dead.
I'm still happily running KDE 3.5.10. I know it contains security vulnerabilities but I have JS completely disabled in KDE settings and I never use Konqueror to browse the web.
Every time when I try KDE 5 I face so many visual glitches and inconsistencies along with a few dozen of bugs, I give up right away. Besides I cannot understand why KDE 5 needs two versions of KDE and QT libraries. I mean I understand that some KDE components haven't been upgraded to KDE 5 frameworks or whatever their name is, but KDE 5 is ... TWO freaking years old.
And let me tell you this: plasma sucks big time. It's a crashing monstrosity with monstrous memory and disk requirements. For some reasons some KDE devs thought KDE would be useful as a platform for tablets but I don't know a single person on this planet who runs KDE on their tablets. So, now we have this semi-usable crashing shit instead of something lean and fast.
On my new PCs I happily use more or less dead XFCE (not actually dead but dormant) for the simple fact that it's still maintained and included in distros. Of course there's Trinity but speaking frankly I don't trust it. I'm not in a position to audit their code (I'm not a C++ programmer) and some of their design decisions are simply horrible - e.g. they renamed most QT/KDE classes and added their own prefixes without any reasons whatsoever. It's not like KDE3.5/QT3 are still developed and there could be any conflict.
I guess the real reason for the renaming was that TDE's core developer was afraid someone would start stealing his code to patch ages old KDE 3.5.10. The net result is that a dozen of people in the world use TDE and most distros shun it. Had they continued patching KDE3.5/QT3 to make them usable again on modern Linux distros, distros would have included them right away.
I can only say, fuck you.
If bringing in the car analogy, it's like people bemoaning the fact that automobile companies often refresh their cars ... every fucking year. Well, the truth is they really do, and no one forces you to update your car every 12 months.
So, moar stupid polls, more 1st world problems.
> Have Slashdot readers seen any performance issues while playing games on Linux?
Which games? Most games for Linux are Indies and Linux runs them just fine.
Under Linux you won't be able to play the native versions of Overwatch, Doom 4, Quantum Break, or any version of GTA, CoD, Battlefield, Colin McRay Rally, Crysis, Deus Ex, FarCry, Hitman, Mafia etc. etc. etc.
The researchers actually admit (actual PDF) what I'm saying: "Actually, if you're not in control of the bare metal all bets are off"
While I commend the guys at BitDefender for finding this vulnerability its severity as a tad overstated.
Most if not all virtual machines are not encrypted, so your hosting provider has full access to your encryption keys which means there are easier ways to decrypt/intercept traffic.
Presumably you can solve this problem by using full disk encryption but then you need to find a way to pass your encryption password to your virtual host and you will surely do that through the means provided by your hosting provider, which means your password will be intercepted en route and again your hosting provider will have full access to the disk image.
In short you cannot trust anything you're not running from your own physically secured environment.
And even in your own fully secured physical environment you're still f*cked.
I paid those fuckers for access, never got one - all searches still return bare numbers without any data - "subscribe to see raw data".
My five (!) support requests remain unanswered (I sent the first one over four days ago).
It looks like they indeed have the leaked data, but they are not willing to share it with anyone.
Right?
What we have now is various AI networks/algorithms/etc which cannot reason, cannot really use memory (in a sense how human beings do that) and which are less "intelligent" than earthworms with three hundred neurons.
Which automatically begs a question: if a creature with 300 neurons is more intelligent than our intelligent algorithms then maybe we still light years away from implementing proper AI, aka general AI.
For some reasons media has conflated AI to general AI, but these two things are a hundred orders of magnitude different.
That's what I foresee with the current technology.
Jokes aside, do we have to send human beings to Mars? What about sending robots first to build at least partially self-sustaining habitats? What about finding ways to protect people from the cosmic radiation during at least three years (x2) long journey to and from the planet? What about ways of bringing them back? What about the storage of supplies, more importantly food, for six years and the mass of a rocket? What about the loss of muscles and bones mass? Last time I checked currently we have no means of creating artificial gravity in space.
Dozens of very hard to resolve question and somehow Elon claims we'll have them resolved by 2024. Unbelievable.
which has very minimal, I can even say non-existing, QA/QC and no unit tests at all.
Not so greatest then, considering the number of regressions in each kernel release.
Not so greatest then, considering that people get tired of adjusting their code to new APIs which inevitably leads to even more regressions.
Not so greatest then, considering that bug reports in bugzilla.kernel.org often receive zero attention and LKML posts are lost in the noise of hundreds of patches published every day.
You know, Greg, you don't sound convincing. You sound like a marketer of some dietary supplement.
I know this comment will be modded to hell by rabid Linux fanboys, but I'm just tired of this BS remarks made by open source advocates. The truth of course is a lot less exciting.
Sounds like Facebook.com is best accessed from Brainwash.com
The world has already moved on to Git which is essentially perfect nowadays.
when they introduced a mandatory home page peddling their additional software. Too bad this app is still the most useful file manager in Android but luckily you can replace it with something less intrusive by giving up on certain non-essential features.
Also if you still cannot live without it, uninstall it and manually install one of its old shit-free versions from here. Make sure you've disabled automatic updates in the Google Play (Store) app.
is currently nothing more than a gimmick.
News at 11.
Update your /etc/ImageMagick/policy.xml file so that it contains this (taken from http://imagetragick.com ) and restart corresponding daemons:
/> /> /> /> /> /> /> /> />
<policymap>
<policy domain="coder" rights="none" pattern="EPHEMERAL"
<policy domain="coder" rights="none" pattern="URL"
<policy domain="coder" rights="none" pattern="HTTPS"
<policy domain="coder" rights="none" pattern="MVG"
<policy domain="coder" rights="none" pattern="MSL"
<policy domain="coder" rights="none" pattern="TEXT"
<policy domain="coder" rights="none" pattern="SHOW"
<policy domain="coder" rights="none" pattern="WIN"
<policy domain="coder" rights="none" pattern="PLT"
</policymap>
You're safe now. The full fix is still being worked out.
to get a broader comprehension of language as a whole
There's still zero comprehension: Google engineers are teaching their AI the relationships between words, yet the AI has no vague clue what those words actually mean. It's like trying to teach a toddler to create electrical circuits - they might even work, but the toddler won't understand what he/she's actually doing.
Understanding the meaning of words and the context, creating meaningful sentences using the former concepts - that's what a real AI would be but we are still 20 years away from that.
99% of people out there don't understand what they are and they are for, so, unlikely.
The two most important reasons are: firstly, Google loves to peddle its browser whenever possible (they own the largest ad network for that), and, secondly, IE has a reputation of being slow and unreliable.
As for the Edge browser - it is really fast but its fonts rendering on low DPI screens is beyond awful (just like all other UWP apps). Also its UI is way too cumbersome for a lot of people.
At the same time with the advent of Windows 10 Microsoft has stopped caring which browser you actually use - they own your PC and your data.
The only chance of "hearing" from an alien civilization is that they keep on wasting absolutely excessive amounts of energy on beaming absolutely useless radio signals to the entire universe. Would we do that for thousands or millions of years? No. Would they? No.
The current estimates of the size of the observable universe: 93 billion light years across. The age of the universe: roughly 14 billion years. That means there are possible civilizations out there whose broadcasts will never reach us due to the expansion of the universe.
The fact is there are dozens of reasons for civilizations of the universe to never encounter one another and I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing.
I wonder why it's not mentioned. From Wikipedia, "the BAM's costs were estimated at $14 billion" at 1991 prices, and considering inflation, that would be 14*1.75 = $24.5 billions in today's prices. Other websites mention up to 2.35 ratio which will increase the cost to $33 billion.
seems not to be what the author of this news piece actually intended. Mr. HughPickens.com, what did you really mean?
In most gadgets the USB plug is the most flimsy part which breaks far too often and now they want us to abuse it even more? Also, tell me, how are we supposed to wear headphones and charge the phone at the same time (wireless charging is often not an option)?
A 3.5mm jack is sturdy as hell, perhaps that's what all this fuss is about. They want us to replace our headphones, gadgets and pay service centers a lot more.
Last but note least this "upgrade" will cost the consumer an arm and a leg, since from now on headphones will have to include their own DAC chip which doesn't come for free.