I think you read the report wrong, it's the total cost of "0wnership", as opposed to Ownership, meaning it's easier to crack a Windows box than Linux or Mac.
Yes, though, the report is flawed. At one point it insists Windows is unsafe because its users do not know very much about it.
That was weird. It felt like a joke as I was reading it, and when I was done I backed out to the fairly professional looking website. Even after reading some posts, it seems like some other people here can't really tell either, although it was kinda funny. Forgive and correct me if I'm wrong, because I've never heard of this company, but it looks like some 1337 h4x0rz who hired an art guy for the website and someone who faked a technical communications degree to proofread and format their reports.
Not just speculation, but a great idea, and one I've heard talked about before. It seems like the place where a "tablet" interface would really be useful is the home: stick it to the fridge, have it on the couch etc. If you want a tablet interface in your home, there is absolutely no point in making it a seperate computer. It just needs to be a roving wireless monitor.
This also capitalizes on price. All you need is an LCD monitor in a casing that can respond to a stylus (expensive already, true, but every tablet that also has built in PC parts has to have one of these), wi-fi connection to a "monitor dock," where the screen could be placed upright and "docked" to restore a wired connection, and a cheap microproc to do the networking and input translation.
I honestly think this will be standard inside 15 years or so.
Some of the headlines and comments in this thread have left me with an extremely bad taste in my mouth for Slashdot and its readers/contributors. Those who have posted those comments, you know who you are.
I wish this story had been posted without the obligatory message thread. While the technical subject is a good source of conversation, it seems somewhat unimportant and disrepectful in this case.
I do not know anyone involved in the incident, but when posting to this board, please assume that someone who does will read your comment. Let's keep this place a little more sane and intelligent.
The RIAA is going to have absolute fits about this. I remember hearing months ago about the advent of digital radio, and how the RIAA was already on it's case because of the ability to "retain and store high-quality digital broadcasts" (not a direct quote.)
Stupid bastards. Notice this was never a problem when people were dubbing radio on to tapes. Leave it to the rest of humanity to find a good way of owning, storing, and organizing music, and then the RIAA says, "Hey, this is efficient and high quality. Better stop them while we can..."
Even though it wouldn't be difficult, there's absolutely no reason to, when windows offers all of it's compatibility, plus all the ActiveX controls and everything else to make that thing as user friendly (read: junked up and flashy) as possible. Sure, it might be easy on Linux, but why bother?
Besides, to the disinterested, "Linux" is scary sounding, and "Windows" offers the comfort of familiarity.
Antithesis
on
You've Got PC
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Here it is, the exact antithesis of the Linux vs. Windows story about a half hour ago, and the reason that "Linux vs. Windows" is not a reality yet.
Plug it in, turn it on, and you're on (a poor imitation of) the Internet.
Re:GNU/Linux is not ready for "vs. Windows"
on
Linux vs. Windows
·
· Score: 1
Parent:
When Joe Average buys a Linux PC
Reply:
If a user gets a Linux PC and actually sits down and tries to use it...It will take time to learn
These two don't go together. "Joe Average" probably doesn't want to try to find ways to do "just about anything he could in Windows," he wants to do them, however unfortunate this may seem to those who know.
Many people here on Slashdot, including myself, would give anything for the world to learn to use computers so people could form their own opinions about the tools that practically rule their lives. The proverbial mom or grandma that "just wants to check her email and look at recipes online," (I know, I have one) frustrates us to no end, and the people who print all of their emails and store them in file folders in their desks when the computer can ironically do exactly the same thing with no paper, ink, or hassle (Hi grandpa.)
Unfortunately, the computer has become more than a tool. It has evolved to such an extent that a user of the tool no longer requires the knowledge of how to use the tool. Computers have become servants: "Check my email," "Fetch my quotes," "Find this on the internet." To all the Slashdotters who use Firefox because they know better, try stepping into the amateur's shoes for the day. Double click that Internet Explorer icon, thinking only "Hey, this is probably the thing that lets me explore the internet," and when you want to find something, try that magnifying glass at the top that says "Search." Dodge those creepy "customize" and "settings" buttons. Inefficient? Horribly. But it does what it says it does, and well enough for most people. Many of these people didn't grow up with computers, and really have no concept of what they are. "Multitask" is not in their dictionary. Still others grew up with a Nintendo or the like; find the game you want and jam it in there. Yes of course that controller will work. If it's broken, it's broken; you buy a new one. As to your comment about Apple computers, I couldn't disagree more. Macs also "conceivably, at some time in the future, under certain circumstances" could compete with Windows: if they lowered their hardware prices and simply advertised prime-time (I can't remember last time I saw a Mac ad on TV) that their computers actually CAN do everything that Windows can for a large share of the population, sales would skyrocket. Of course, this would take time, because even people who know little to nothing about computers knows that "Apple is a 'fringe' thing, everyone who wants to get something done uses Windows."
Which brings us back to square one. A little knowledge is dangerous in the hands of the disinterested, those who just want it to work. When Linux is truly ready to compete with Windows, the news will not be relegated to Slashdot. It will be bellowed from the rooftops and announced in headlines, "Finally, Choice!" People will buy a Linux PC, plug it in, and get to checking that email. I pray for that day daily; not as a fan of Linux, but as a fan of choice.
I believe he's talking about Apple's Lossless codec, which lets you rip lossless, but still compressed (just not as compressed as mpeg or AAC) audio into iTunes.
I wish I had a phone that just made calls. It seems that mobile phone companies still have yet to make a phone that can even do that well. I'd love to see a push forward in a more usable interface too... obviously, it's tough to change things such as the stanard telephone key layout, but my newer Nokia phone, for example, has basically the same look and feel as one of the first phones I ever had years ago. Also, the power button is a pain in the ass, the battery cover is very flimsy, and the color screen (of which I really wouldn't care if it was black and white) is difficult to read even in mild sunlight.
Once they make a phone that fixes problems like these and works with the service in a way that I can make and receive good quality calls, THEN I'll be interested in what they have to say about other uses of mobile phones.
"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could igve you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself--anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face... was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime..." -- George Orwell, 1984
For those of you that haven't RTFA, I highly suggest. Brings to light some amazing technological feats. I don't know what to say about the level of surveillance though; that picture of the blimp in the sky is what made me think of 1984, and one wonders what the cityscape under the photographer's lens looks like.
Although the level of security will be so high as to probably induce paranoia, I believe people will still be afraid of the looming threat of terrorist attacks. We're talking about a city here, with all it's dynamics and movement, not to mention the extra jillion people that will be there, each with his or her own agenda and places to be. I can't help but think that it's not enough, but what is?
It seems to me that individuals in jail still have rights, no matter how detestable they are, and I'm pretty sure that having a camera trained on you 24x7 against your will violates those rights.
IANAL, and I may be completely wrong here, but I'm just kind of curious. Parent brings forward a good topic for discussion.
How are wiretapping or entrapment even applicable? If a honeynet is a secure network (in this case, very light security) and is broken in to by a cracker, snooped around in, and exited, is this not synonymous to someone breaking and entering your home and leaving evidence at the crime scene? No one says that the network has to have a big sign over it that says "Honeynet - Hack here and you'll be caught!" For all anyone knows, it really could be a protected resource, so it's not like you're luring that burglar into the house and having the cops wait for him. As for wiretapping laws, the cracker has illegitimately accessed your system, and any information he leaves behind now exists on your storage property. Who's to say you can't use that information?
Honeynet (noun): 1. Used to replace another noun indicating a network resource that has been Slashdotted in order to indicate slowness. Syn. Molassesnet, Ketchupnet. Ant. Local Area Network. Usage: "Fsking Slashdot! This place is a honeynet now."
is Klar's, who beat me to the punch on the short instructions on how to disable those popups.
Give a man a fish, and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and feed him for a lifetime.
Who needs the FCC to intervene when a savvy computer user or two can kindly spread the word and let the whole world know how to make life a little better for everyone.
I think "red-headed stepchild" of NASA and government funding. That poor thing has been broken and talked about so many times that it was tough to decide if they should actually salvage it or just let it burn up.
Money and promises of future technology be damned, I think we should keep the thing around. Hubble is one of the few things that keeps the explorers of the "undiscovered country" in the news and connecting with the public (even though so often, the news is that it's busted again).
Besides, the fact that they can keep fixing the thing is a tribute to functional technological design. Someone should explain to Microsoft programmers that if NASA, an often-underfunded agency, can replace lenses and precision gyroscopes on a piece of metal orbiting the earth at high speeds, Microsoft should be able to patch their software without all this racket.
Then thing in the Apple universe, if you want to buy a computer that can run the Mac OS, you have to buy it from Apple. They can release whatever type of computers they want, for any price they want, and that's what we have to live with if we want to run the Mac OS.
Absolutely correct. It is Apple's own monopoly on their ideas that holds Apple back, not Microsoft's monopoly on the market (that and Apple's refusal to create advertisements that explain the benefits of their own products to consumers wondering why they should "Switch" just because this starving-artist looking guy on a white background on my TV says that Apple's OS is so much more intuitive.)
Google Exec 1: "Yahoo is suing us for the way we display ads."
Exec 2: "Yeah, but look, this IPO thing is great! Look, it's so easy. I can just create a couple million shares here and and do whatever I..."
Exec 1: "Problem solved."
Slashdot Mirror
I get "teh j0ke5orz" and all, but it just was hard to tell of the legitimacy and the semi-professional look and feel of the website.
Yes, though, the report is flawed. At one point it insists Windows is unsafe because its users do not know very much about it.
That was weird. It felt like a joke as I was reading it, and when I was done I backed out to the fairly professional looking website. Even after reading some posts, it seems like some other people here can't really tell either, although it was kinda funny. Forgive and correct me if I'm wrong, because I've never heard of this company, but it looks like some 1337 h4x0rz who hired an art guy for the website and someone who faked a technical communications degree to proofread and format their reports.
This also capitalizes on price. All you need is an LCD monitor in a casing that can respond to a stylus (expensive already, true, but every tablet that also has built in PC parts has to have one of these), wi-fi connection to a "monitor dock," where the screen could be placed upright and "docked" to restore a wired connection, and a cheap microproc to do the networking and input translation.
I honestly think this will be standard inside 15 years or so.
I wish this story had been posted without the obligatory message thread. While the technical subject is a good source of conversation, it seems somewhat unimportant and disrepectful in this case.
I do not know anyone involved in the incident, but when posting to this board, please assume that someone who does will read your comment. Let's keep this place a little more sane and intelligent.
Stupid bastards. Notice this was never a problem when people were dubbing radio on to tapes. Leave it to the rest of humanity to find a good way of owning, storing, and organizing music, and then the RIAA says, "Hey, this is efficient and high quality. Better stop them while we can..."
Besides, to the disinterested, "Linux" is scary sounding, and "Windows" offers the comfort of familiarity.
Here it is, the exact antithesis of the Linux vs. Windows story about a half hour ago, and the reason that "Linux vs. Windows" is not a reality yet. Plug it in, turn it on, and you're on (a poor imitation of) the Internet.
Many people here on Slashdot, including myself, would give anything for the world to learn to use computers so people could form their own opinions about the tools that practically rule their lives. The proverbial mom or grandma that "just wants to check her email and look at recipes online," (I know, I have one) frustrates us to no end, and the people who print all of their emails and store them in file folders in their desks when the computer can ironically do exactly the same thing with no paper, ink, or hassle (Hi grandpa.)
Unfortunately, the computer has become more than a tool. It has evolved to such an extent that a user of the tool no longer requires the knowledge of how to use the tool. Computers have become servants: "Check my email," "Fetch my quotes," "Find this on the internet." To all the Slashdotters who use Firefox because they know better, try stepping into the amateur's shoes for the day. Double click that Internet Explorer icon, thinking only "Hey, this is probably the thing that lets me explore the internet," and when you want to find something, try that magnifying glass at the top that says "Search." Dodge those creepy "customize" and "settings" buttons. Inefficient? Horribly. But it does what it says it does, and well enough for most people. Many of these people didn't grow up with computers, and really have no concept of what they are. "Multitask" is not in their dictionary. Still others grew up with a Nintendo or the like; find the game you want and jam it in there. Yes of course that controller will work. If it's broken, it's broken; you buy a new one. As to your comment about Apple computers, I couldn't disagree more. Macs also "conceivably, at some time in the future, under certain circumstances" could compete with Windows: if they lowered their hardware prices and simply advertised prime-time (I can't remember last time I saw a Mac ad on TV) that their computers actually CAN do everything that Windows can for a large share of the population, sales would skyrocket. Of course, this would take time, because even people who know little to nothing about computers knows that "Apple is a 'fringe' thing, everyone who wants to get something done uses Windows."
Which brings us back to square one. A little knowledge is dangerous in the hands of the disinterested, those who just want it to work. When Linux is truly ready to compete with Windows, the news will not be relegated to Slashdot. It will be bellowed from the rooftops and announced in headlines, "Finally, Choice!" People will buy a Linux PC, plug it in, and get to checking that email. I pray for that day daily; not as a fan of Linux, but as a fan of choice.
I believe he's talking about Apple's Lossless codec, which lets you rip lossless, but still compressed (just not as compressed as mpeg or AAC) audio into iTunes.
Once they make a phone that fixes problems like these and works with the service in a way that I can make and receive good quality calls, THEN I'll be interested in what they have to say about other uses of mobile phones.
Although the level of security will be so high as to probably induce paranoia, I believe people will still be afraid of the looming threat of terrorist attacks. We're talking about a city here, with all it's dynamics and movement, not to mention the extra jillion people that will be there, each with his or her own agenda and places to be. I can't help but think that it's not enough, but what is?
It seems to me that individuals in jail still have rights, no matter how detestable they are, and I'm pretty sure that having a camera trained on you 24x7 against your will violates those rights.
How are wiretapping or entrapment even applicable? If a honeynet is a secure network (in this case, very light security) and is broken in to by a cracker, snooped around in, and exited, is this not synonymous to someone breaking and entering your home and leaving evidence at the crime scene? No one says that the network has to have a big sign over it that says "Honeynet - Hack here and you'll be caught!" For all anyone knows, it really could be a protected resource, so it's not like you're luring that burglar into the house and having the cops wait for him. As for wiretapping laws, the cracker has illegitimately accessed your system, and any information he leaves behind now exists on your storage property. Who's to say you can't use that information?
Honeynet (noun): 1. Used to replace another noun indicating a network resource that has been Slashdotted in order to indicate slowness. Syn. Molassesnet, Ketchupnet. Ant. Local Area Network. Usage: "Fsking Slashdot! This place is a honeynet now."
"I've got good news. I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance because I'm a 1337 hax0rz."
I think "red-headed stepchild" of NASA and government funding. That poor thing has been broken and talked about so many times that it was tough to decide if they should actually salvage it or just let it burn up. Money and promises of future technology be damned, I think we should keep the thing around. Hubble is one of the few things that keeps the explorers of the "undiscovered country" in the news and connecting with the public (even though so often, the news is that it's busted again). Besides, the fact that they can keep fixing the thing is a tribute to functional technological design. Someone should explain to Microsoft programmers that if NASA, an often-underfunded agency, can replace lenses and precision gyroscopes on a piece of metal orbiting the earth at high speeds, Microsoft should be able to patch their software without all this racket.
Google Exec 1: "Yahoo is suing us for the way we display ads."
Exec 2: "Yeah, but look, this IPO thing is great! Look, it's so easy. I can just create a couple million shares here and and do whatever I..."
Exec 1: "Problem solved."
Wendy's guns for top McDonald's execs to learn french fry secrets.