The key question for the customer is if it is SUSTAINABLE and I think with Android it definitely is.
Definitely? Sustainable for WHO? Sure being open-source makes it sustainable after Google drops it for the next big thing at Google.
Does being open source benefit the average consumer? I think it does.
Will this continued development be easily accessible to the average consumer? Maybe not.
Does it matter? Absolutely not.
Why? The consumer will change phones and will use the OS that comes with it.
The phone market is not the same as the computer market. When you buy a computer you think about what OS it will run and if it will run your current programs. When the average consumer buys a phone they think about if the phone call quality is good, and how connected that phone is. Unlike traditional computers the activities performed on a phone is not usually tied to a specific OS.
So the IMPORTANT question is what can the consumer do with their phone during their 2 year contract period and how easy is it to use with the computer they have at home. Android is still not there yet... Maybe when they purchase their next phone, Android will be ready... Until then, Apple holds the definite advantage, and I'm speaking as an Android user.
Then again something better may come from Apple and HP because no matter how hard you wish. These corporations are not resting on their laurels and just raking in the money. They have a greater than hobbyist reason to continue to garner market share. So they too will improve their phones.
At the same time Google will do what benefits Google, and may deemphasize Android in favor of Chrome OS which tightly integrates into their cloud computing strategy. Not saying Android doesn't also fit within their strategy, but Chrome *seems* more tied with online content. And while Apple, HP, and Microsoft continue to concentrate on a single mobile OS, Google will have to decide if it's worth investing into both Android and Chrome OS.
... but then get absolutely outraged that he hasn't done anything about the Oil Spill (a natural disaster he has little control over) despite the fact that he actually has put quite a bit of money into cleaning up this oil spill.
First of all which part of the oil pill is a natural disaster. Hurricanes, Earthquakes, and Flood are natural disasters. Oil spills are man made disasters resulting from a corporation's desire for profits overriding the safety needs of their employees and the communities affected by this.
The fact that BP and the government are trying to figure out what to do now that the crap has hit the proverbial fan is proof that BP shouldn't been out there in the first place.
We are getting distracted by disinformation from bloggers who crave web hits over actual journalism. We also don't place enough value on actual journalists (you know the trained professions) who go out in the field and research the report, and their editors who fact check the story (*cough*) before it is placed on the web or in print.
We live in an echo chamber. Where if it's linked by three bloggers then it must be true. Where if it's similar to what you wish were true then it must be true.
My only beef is that he didn't mind the unsubstantiated "information" that benefited his position and allowed him to win an election with nothing more than a "Yes We Can" slogan.
Live by the tweets and blogs, die by the tweets and blogs...
I think it would be more accurate to say that we are distracted by technology (games, tweets, etc.) instead of actually trying to learn something... Really, how many teenagers are actually using technology to learn something beneficial? Really?
I find it funny that people get so emotional over someone else's choice in computers.
I also find it funny that only on Slashdot you can find people comparing computing devices that were engineer well enough to actually revive a basically dead touch tablet market, to pieces of crap thrown together at a Chinese assembly plant.
Let's use Slashdot's mandatory car metaphor as an example:
Sure we can all drive to work on a Vespa scooter, but I prefer to drive my Honda automobile. There is a tangible difference between having the capability to drive to work, and actually wanting to use the vehicle to drive to work. The same applies to computers.
Sure I can spend a lot of time figuring out how to get that $80-$190 off brand device to do what I want, or I can spend a little more money and get something useful like a $300-$400 Asus netbook or $400 - $800 Apple iPad.
That's not even taking reliability into consideration, I have yet found anything that is both really cheap and reliable. Face it the only thing those cheap pieces of crap found only on ebay are good at is to provide some flimsy evidence to a Slashdot poster so that they can say "See I can find something cheaper that technically could do something similar to that expensive computer you like so much!!"
No one cries that Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony have very high cost associated with developing software for their systems, and invented the "walled garden". Not to mention, they actually control almost all of the game console market.
I agree, if you only know flash programming then feel free to limit yourselves to other devices. If you want to program for the iPad / iPhone then get yourself a book on Objective C and a Mac. It's cheaper than most other commercial development systems, and you get a decent computer out of the deal too.
No one forces you to buy these things...
BTW you can still do anything you want with your personal property. Just don't expect Apple to make it easy for you to sell your unofficial crap. Try making unauthorized software for the Nintendo Wii, Sony Playstation, or Microsoft XBox 360 and see how fast they come asking for their royalty fees.
Jeez, CmdrTaco posts a story about Apple and all the whiny little bitches come out of the woodwork and generate traffic on the forums... Wait... Damn it I fell for CmdrTaco's tricks too.
After spending time in Australia, I miss my US broadband.
You don't realize how good you got it until it's gone. Sure we get slower than advertised rates, but its not that much slower and despite claims here on Slashdot it's practically unlimited for the average consumer.
In Australia they seem to sell it by capacity rather than speed. In Alice Springs, I can buy a 3GB capped account for around the same price that I spend at home (for the "unlimited" connection).
After talking amongst my friends here who come from different parts the globe, I come to the opinion that there always some undisclosed "gotchas" when someone talks about how great their service is, either:
1. The service has unlimited connections which really means no data surcharges, but the service is throttled whenever a few subscribers use more bandwidth than budgeted for the neighborhood.
2. The service has great connection speeds (in theory), and have insanely low data limits where the ISP makes their money from the overages. Plus you may have the added benefit of #3 below.
3. The connection is great with the latest technology at each subscribers home so your government can brag about how advance you are, but in reality when you decide to venture beyond your small community and try to talk to the rest of the planet, you have a horrible backbone and limited connectivity that must be shared among all of those subscribers. So unless you chatting with your neighbor, your getting horrible data rates with huge ping times.
. To paraphrase:
There are lies, damn lies, and broadband brochures.
Of course, who has time to be online when there are other things to do!
The idea that anything personal should be destroyed so other people can't see it has to make anthropologists, historians, and scientists in general cringe something fierce.
So? Why should anyone care about anthropologists or historians when it comes to using their DNA? If these two non-medical institutions really want access then they should ask and come to some agreeable terms.
Otherwise, they can search the dirt like they do now.
Suck it up and deal with reality. I'm siding with the researchers on this one.
Why?
(Just speculating here)
The original intent was to help the tribe with their diabetes. They made the agreement vague enough to keep the required paperwork down, and to keep any potential roadblocks from hampering the original work.
Now that the work is over, researchers within the university wanted access to the samples for their own research. The university's review board compared the requests against the vague agreement made for the original research and awarded access. Now we have an issue where the spirit of the agreement doesn't match the letter of the agreement.
I think the university should "Suck it up and deal with reality" that they dropped the ball here. They should at least kept the tribe informed of any new research, or at the very least terminated the agreement after the diabetes research concluded.
I don't see enough information to pick a side, but I don't see how a technicality created by a vague agreement should absolve the university. At the very least this should serve as a wakeup call for both the universities and the research subjects that full disclosure of all activities permitted and the duration should be given at the time of signing. We can call it a "truth in granting permissions" form.
It actually probably protects him quite a bit, assuming this wasn't a marketing ploy to begin with.
Bullshit. He works for Apple not the mofia.
Why defend the actions of a two-bit blogger site? First they turn into a national enquirer rag because they basically take advantage of someone who had one too many beers, and then they knowingly purchase the stolen property for $5K.
Then they become worse then the National Enquirer because even the national enquirer wouldn't spill the beans about their sources.
Browsers running on Apple's Mac OS X are not vulnerable.
Of course not, Apple distributes their own version of JVM for OS X not Sun. So this is a fine example of not incorporating every "neat" bleeding edge idea into the JVM is a feature not a handicap.
I work with very large scientific balloons. On the occasions, that I help school kids perform science using small weather balloon, I use my ham radio...
You never know where amateur radio will take you....
Where do you find people crunching numbers? Windows? OSX?
I don't know how top500 gets their information, but I know quite a few scientists that use OSX for number crunching. As a matter a fact, I know some that use windows too. But the Mac Pros do it faster and with style;)
In fact as I write this another group of scientists that aren't affiliated with us, are working in the same hangar and they appear to be using nothing but Macs. So I think there's enough anecdotal evidence to say yes OS X is being used for very serious number crunching.
How can you say that Windows is a "softer" target than Linux, but Linux is not "safer"?
Sorry about that. I've really made a confusing comment.
What I meant was that Linux wasn't necessarily safe, it was just a much harder target than Windows. Why? Because there were plenty of working exploits in the wild for Windows, yet all we had were a list of exploits for Linux that needed to be coded.
So Windows proved to be the "softer" target just because of time saved. Linux wasn't necessarily "safer" because we had the RedHat bulletins in hand and could have taken advantage of them but didn't because it would have required more time per point scored when compared to Windows. Why work hard to gain fewer points? The scoring didn't factor difficulty in that first year. I don't even know if they do now.
Unlike Pwn2Own, Digital Combat Exercise (love it when the Army gets involved) did not disclose the network layout. So we had to map it, and exploit it in 2 hours. This made it more of a race than to demonstrate security hardness of an OS. If anything, it more of a demonstration on the importance of a qualified IT staff.
Anyway, the only thing that prevented Linux from being exploited that first year was laziness (and lack of time) on our part. We assumed Linux was hard to exploit, so we didn't bother. The following year the team didn't have that assumption and took advantage of some machines that didn't have up-to-date patches.
This is a case of a congratulatory compliment being taken out of context. It's always amazing that someone took the initiative to learn, and besides it's rude to say "been there done that".
I aways compliment fellow enthusiasts, and as always my opinions do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.
I give this particular "Pwn2Own" show no credibility what so ever because of these details.
I believe what you really meant to say was that we shouldn't fall into the trap of believing that Chrome is actually safer due to the fact that no one really targeted it in this contest.
I've done my share of "Digital Combat Exercises" and you are correct that we should only view the contest as a verification that flaws exist, and not as a certification that a particular platform is safe.
For my first competition, my team concentrated on all the windows machine on the network because we had a list of known exploits and figured that we could exploit them the quickest and therefore accumulate the highest score possible within the time limits. All teams used the same strategy, and the Linux machines weren't even targeted. This wasn't because Linux was safer, it was because we all knew Windows was a softer target. This made for a some very close final scores.
For the following year's contest (which I couldn't participate due to a schedule conflict), my old team paid attention to the known exploits for Linux and started targeting them to guarantee a larger lead going into the final minutes of the contest.
I think you'll see this pattern in all "hacker" contests. Each year more platforms will fall as each team strategize on what will give them the edge during the time alloted. You'll probably see Chrome fall next year. Look at Safari in Pwn2Own, it wasn't until 2 years ago before people started to seriously attack it for the points.
The upside of Google is that they push the state of the art with everything they do, and they provide free access to products that we couldn't afford without them — assuming that these products would even exist without them, which they mostly wouldn't. The downside is that they're total amateurs when it comes to the nuts and bolts of providing a product that isn't buggy, doesn't have major UI issues, and doesn't have weird outages and feature changes without notice. Google Earth seems to typify both the upside and the downside.
Pointing out that:
A: Google didn't create Google Earth, it was already available from Keyhole.
B: NASA had a product that was already open sourced 1 year prior to Google acquisition of Keyhole.
Slashdot Mirror
Definitely? Sustainable for WHO? Sure being open-source makes it sustainable after Google drops it for the next big thing at Google.
Does being open source benefit the average consumer? I think it does.
Will this continued development be easily accessible to the average consumer? Maybe not.
Does it matter? Absolutely not.
Why? The consumer will change phones and will use the OS that comes with it.
The phone market is not the same as the computer market. When you buy a computer you think about what OS it will run and if it will run your current programs. When the average consumer buys a phone they think about if the phone call quality is good, and how connected that phone is. Unlike traditional computers the activities performed on a phone is not usually tied to a specific OS.
So the IMPORTANT question is what can the consumer do with their phone during their 2 year contract period and how easy is it to use with the computer they have at home. Android is still not there yet... Maybe when they purchase their next phone, Android will be ready... Until then, Apple holds the definite advantage, and I'm speaking as an Android user.
Then again something better may come from Apple and HP because no matter how hard you wish. These corporations are not resting on their laurels and just raking in the money. They have a greater than hobbyist reason to continue to garner market share. So they too will improve their phones.
At the same time Google will do what benefits Google, and may deemphasize Android in favor of Chrome OS which tightly integrates into their cloud computing strategy. Not saying Android doesn't also fit within their strategy, but Chrome *seems* more tied with online content. And while Apple, HP, and Microsoft continue to concentrate on a single mobile OS, Google will have to decide if it's worth investing into both Android and Chrome OS.
First of all which part of the oil pill is a natural disaster. Hurricanes, Earthquakes, and Flood are natural disasters. Oil spills are man made disasters resulting from a corporation's desire for profits overriding the safety needs of their employees and the communities affected by this.
The fact that BP and the government are trying to figure out what to do now that the crap has hit the proverbial fan is proof that BP shouldn't been out there in the first place.
I agree with him on this one. Sort of...
We are getting distracted by disinformation from bloggers who crave web hits over actual journalism. We also don't place enough value on actual journalists (you know the trained professions) who go out in the field and research the report, and their editors who fact check the story (*cough*) before it is placed on the web or in print.
We live in an echo chamber. Where if it's linked by three bloggers then it must be true. Where if it's similar to what you wish were true then it must be true.
My only beef is that he didn't mind the unsubstantiated "information" that benefited his position and allowed him to win an election with nothing more than a "Yes We Can" slogan.
Live by the tweets and blogs, die by the tweets and blogs...
I think it would be more accurate to say that we are distracted by technology (games, tweets, etc.) instead of actually trying to learn something... Really, how many teenagers are actually using technology to learn something beneficial? Really?
I find it funny that people get so emotional over someone else's choice in computers.
I also find it funny that only on Slashdot you can find people comparing computing devices that were engineer well enough to actually revive a basically dead touch tablet market, to pieces of crap thrown together at a Chinese assembly plant.
Let's use Slashdot's mandatory car metaphor as an example:
Sure we can all drive to work on a Vespa scooter, but I prefer to drive my Honda automobile. There is a tangible difference between having the capability to drive to work, and actually wanting to use the vehicle to drive to work. The same applies to computers.
Sure I can spend a lot of time figuring out how to get that $80-$190 off brand device to do what I want, or I can spend a little more money and get something useful like a $300-$400 Asus netbook or $400 - $800 Apple iPad.
That's not even taking reliability into consideration, I have yet found anything that is both really cheap and reliable. Face it the only thing those cheap pieces of crap found only on ebay are good at is to provide some flimsy evidence to a Slashdot poster so that they can say "See I can find something cheaper that technically could do something similar to that expensive computer you like so much!!"
Resistance is futile! They know where you are and what you do....
No one cries that Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony have very high cost associated with developing software for their systems, and invented the "walled garden". Not to mention, they actually control almost all of the game console market.
I agree, if you only know flash programming then feel free to limit yourselves to other devices. If you want to program for the iPad / iPhone then get yourself a book on Objective C and a Mac. It's cheaper than most other commercial development systems, and you get a decent computer out of the deal too.
No one forces you to buy these things...
BTW you can still do anything you want with your personal property. Just don't expect Apple to make it easy for you to sell your unofficial crap. Try making unauthorized software for the Nintendo Wii, Sony Playstation, or Microsoft XBox 360 and see how fast they come asking for their royalty fees.
Jeez, CmdrTaco posts a story about Apple and all the whiny little bitches come out of the woodwork and generate traffic on the forums... Wait... Damn it I fell for CmdrTaco's tricks too.
I agree.
After spending time in Australia, I miss my US broadband.
You don't realize how good you got it until it's gone. Sure we get slower than advertised rates, but its not that much slower and despite claims here on Slashdot it's practically unlimited for the average consumer.
In Australia they seem to sell it by capacity rather than speed. In Alice Springs, I can buy a 3GB capped account for around the same price that I spend at home (for the "unlimited" connection).
After talking amongst my friends here who come from different parts the globe, I come to the opinion that there always some undisclosed "gotchas" when someone talks about how great their service is, either:
1. The service has unlimited connections which really means no data surcharges, but the service is throttled whenever a few subscribers use more bandwidth than budgeted for the neighborhood.
2. The service has great connection speeds (in theory), and have insanely low data limits where the ISP makes their money from the overages. Plus you may have the added benefit of #3 below.
3. The connection is great with the latest technology at each subscribers home so your government can brag about how advance you are, but in reality when you decide to venture beyond your small community and try to talk to the rest of the planet, you have a horrible backbone and limited connectivity that must be shared among all of those subscribers. So unless you chatting with your neighbor, your getting horrible data rates with huge ping times.
. To paraphrase:
There are lies, damn lies, and broadband brochures.
Of course, who has time to be online when there are other things to do!
Cheers, Bill
So? Why should anyone care about anthropologists or historians when it comes to using their DNA? If these two non-medical institutions really want access then they should ask and come to some agreeable terms.
Otherwise, they can search the dirt like they do now.
Why?
(Just speculating here)
The original intent was to help the tribe with their diabetes. They made the agreement vague enough to keep the required paperwork down, and to keep any potential roadblocks from hampering the original work.
Now that the work is over, researchers within the university wanted access to the samples for their own research. The university's review board compared the requests against the vague agreement made for the original research and awarded access. Now we have an issue where the spirit of the agreement doesn't match the letter of the agreement.
I think the university should "Suck it up and deal with reality" that they dropped the ball here. They should at least kept the tribe informed of any new research, or at the very least terminated the agreement after the diabetes research concluded.
I don't see enough information to pick a side, but I don't see how a technicality created by a vague agreement should absolve the university. At the very least this should serve as a wakeup call for both the universities and the research subjects that full disclosure of all activities permitted and the duration should be given at the time of signing. We can call it a "truth in granting permissions" form.
Gizmodo not the commenter.
Bullshit. He works for Apple not the mofia.
Why defend the actions of a two-bit blogger site? First they turn into a national enquirer rag because they basically take advantage of someone who had one too many beers, and then they knowingly purchase the stolen property for $5K.
Then they become worse then the National Enquirer because even the national enquirer wouldn't spill the beans about their sources.
What a bunch of dicks.
Agree. I use Java because it's the easiest way to write cross platform client applications without having to experience DLL hell or dependency issues.
Of course not, Apple distributes their own version of JVM for OS X not Sun. So this is a fine example of not incorporating every "neat" bleeding edge idea into the JVM is a feature not a handicap.
I work with very large scientific balloons. On the occasions, that I help school kids perform science using small weather balloon, I use my ham radio...
You never know where amateur radio will take you....
It reminds me of NASA's Nanosail-D
I don't know how top500 gets their information, but I know quite a few scientists that use OSX for number crunching. As a matter a fact, I know some that use windows too. But the Mac Pros do it faster and with style ;)
In fact as I write this another group of scientists that aren't affiliated with us, are working in the same hangar and they appear to be using nothing but Macs. So I think there's enough anecdotal evidence to say yes OS X is being used for very serious number crunching.
Sorry about that. I've really made a confusing comment.
What I meant was that Linux wasn't necessarily safe, it was just a much harder target than Windows. Why? Because there were plenty of working exploits in the wild for Windows, yet all we had were a list of exploits for Linux that needed to be coded.
So Windows proved to be the "softer" target just because of time saved. Linux wasn't necessarily "safer" because we had the RedHat bulletins in hand and could have taken advantage of them but didn't because it would have required more time per point scored when compared to Windows. Why work hard to gain fewer points? The scoring didn't factor difficulty in that first year. I don't even know if they do now.
Unlike Pwn2Own, Digital Combat Exercise (love it when the Army gets involved) did not disclose the network layout. So we had to map it, and exploit it in 2 hours. This made it more of a race than to demonstrate security hardness of an OS. If anything, it more of a demonstration on the importance of a qualified IT staff.
Anyway, the only thing that prevented Linux from being exploited that first year was laziness (and lack of time) on our part. We assumed Linux was hard to exploit, so we didn't bother. The following year the team didn't have that assumption and took advantage of some machines that didn't have up-to-date patches.
Hope that clears up the confusion a little.
LMFAO. If I could, I would mod you funny.
True and like this report they acted like they were trailblazers.
The media really needs to learn how to google "college weather balloon science".
This is a case of a congratulatory compliment being taken out of context. It's always amazing that someone took the initiative to learn, and besides it's rude to say "been there done that".
I aways compliment fellow enthusiasts, and as always my opinions do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.
I believe what you really meant to say was that we shouldn't fall into the trap of believing that Chrome is actually safer due to the fact that no one really targeted it in this contest.
I've done my share of "Digital Combat Exercises" and you are correct that we should only view the contest as a verification that flaws exist, and not as a certification that a particular platform is safe.
For my first competition, my team concentrated on all the windows machine on the network because we had a list of known exploits and figured that we could exploit them the quickest and therefore accumulate the highest score possible within the time limits. All teams used the same strategy, and the Linux machines weren't even targeted. This wasn't because Linux was safer, it was because we all knew Windows was a softer target. This made for a some very close final scores.
For the following year's contest (which I couldn't participate due to a schedule conflict), my old team paid attention to the known exploits for Linux and started targeting them to guarantee a larger lead going into the final minutes of the contest.
I think you'll see this pattern in all "hacker" contests. Each year more platforms will fall as each team strategize on what will give them the edge during the time alloted. You'll probably see Chrome fall next year. Look at Safari in Pwn2Own, it wasn't until 2 years ago before people started to seriously attack it for the points.
There's an old saying about not killing the messenger...
App security may be generally terrible, but I believe that the fact really proves that the contestants can keep a secret until the contest.
yea. responding to:
Pointing out that:
A: Google didn't create Google Earth, it was already available from Keyhole.
B: NASA had a product that was already open sourced 1 year prior to Google acquisition of Keyhole.
Umm... Google purchase EarthViewer 3D from Keyhole, Inc. and renamed it Google Earth in 2005.
NASA released World Wind in 2004.