It has been tried. The media was quick to get alerted about it. A special thank you for horrible Java implementation of Windows that time which sent a "heads up" to Sun and every geek/professional having something to do with Java:)
$3K for a comparable system with an optical drive, solid-state HDD, etc. No backlit keyboard, maybe, but still food for thought. And I AM a macbook pro, ibook, and mac mini owner.
I'm just saying.
-b And you can change battery yourself:)
If more Apple fans/customers start bitching about these insane decisions, things will get better. Or? I already have a self build PC with Vista and add $400 amount of utility to "fix" it plan in hand.
Apple really "lost it" after the iPhone shipped. Most of the non loudmouth actual user profile is very alerted about it. Professional companies started asking "cross license in case something really more stupid happens" questions to Adobe. It seems Apple is listening to those Digg freaks rather than their core customer base.
You're comparing the battery life and size of a smartphone and that of a laptop.
I don't really think it's a great idea to make the battery integrated on the Air, but that's not even a straw man, it's more like a stick figure. It is not a smart phone, it is a Linux running full feature computer which you can install anything or compile your own. It is a hit on general public shopping sites like Amazon, not "think geek".
For Nokia: If it runs Linux, it is handheld computer. If it runs Symbian: It is smartphone or a business laptop/smartphone creature like 9000 (now E90) series.
Apple wasted a great idea for stupid business reasons as usual lately. People supposed to work in professional IT media or being fan of them adds more to these stupid decisions. Stop apologizing for them. If a company does put a non user replaceable part which is guaranteed to fail in matter of a year, they are greedy. It doesn't make any change if it is Adobe, Apple, HP, Microsoft.
Even Nokia, the indisputable king on mobile couldn't dare to ship any product without user changeable battery.
I sit in the rain counting elephants. An unpleasant task in unpleasant weather. No waterproofing?. No deal.
(seriously, what is with comments like this? firewire has never become a true standard in laptops. I've only ever owned one laptop with firewire. and subnotebooks have been successful without built-in optical drives for years. this new laptop fits fine within the category it was built for) Firewire (IEE1394) is a true standard coming with every high end Laptop out there. A person buying a $1700 laptop (or $3K) won't trust his/her data to your average sub speed USB junk. High end cameras doesn't even do anything over USB. There is no high end audio equipment for USB2 because of a basic reason: Its advertised speed is completely false. Do you think a $1700 laptop owner have a el cheapo USB2 camera?
As Intel have "special" agreement with Apple, they could be ones to blame for single USB2 junk being offered. USB2 is still being considered a joke even while the Firewire 3200 didn't ship yet.
This is the cost of exclusive agreements with "Tel" part of Wintel gang.
All Macintosh owners out there either own or owned a Mac with Firewire port and they are enjoying 40MB/80MB rates with their external drives. Apple kinda forgot their user profile lately. For USB2 el Cheapo people, there are far cheaper Laptops offered by no name companies.
Slashdot summary is wrong. Check the author's comments below the article.
This is a flash exploit so no browser is immune. I would say in other way, if some miracle happens and Adobe acts quick to issue a Flash update/hotfix for it, ALL browsers will be immune.
I keep it on because: 1) I can't be bugged with port configurations just to download a single linux ISO image via azureus and turning off when not needed 2) I use a Apple Airport Basestation which doesn't use uPNP, it uses NAT-PMP which is all documented 3) I use OS X only
You are hitting wrong target. It is NOT uPNP (once more, again!) , it is its stupid implementation by MSFT and their Taiwan buddies. If Adobe doesn't release a Flash plugin update covering this issue in a WEEK, they are to blame too.
Millions of devices, operating systems, software are using uPNP happily otherwise.
For most of these people, uPNP is a godsend since it eliminates the need to mess around with portforwarding in the router configuration.
If uPNP is a godsend to those people... they need to get a better God. uPNP is not "evil" or anything, the implementation matters. Turning port 554 on while needed and turning off dynamically is much more secure than keeping it open 24/7 in case you will watch a 10 min streaming show one day, at random time.
uPNP works all fine under Linux, OS X, FreeBSD. There seems to be one usual suspect there causing the problem and as you know, it is "more evil than satan himself";)
Why would one throw away features instead of using a well supported, not stupidly coded router?
If you disable UPNP, what will you do with streaming video/audio, bittorrent etc?
I use an Apple brand Airport and if this thing was hit by the mentioned issue, I would ask Apple about status for fix and if it is a real threat, if I didn't get a meaningful answer or no answer at all, I would go to market to buy a better supported router which has frequent firmware updates covering such issues, unplug my Apple one and never buy anything related to networking from Apple at all.
Reading the comments about this story, people suggests block javascript, flash, give up default browser and at last, give up uPNP.
I agree to changing that "admin" funny thing and likely "1234" password (and disable remote admin!) but I don't agree to losing features. If the vendor doesn't care about such a major issue, what if some UDP based attack uncovered? Lets turn off UDP too?
This issue should be used as a great benchmark for the current router/wireless industry. Lets see who updates their firmware and who doesn't.
As an Apple airport basestation owner, I will be watching those D-Link etc. software updates. No kidding.
The battery on iPhones & iPods isn't removable to make the device thinner. I have seen and used lot more thinner devices (including those new Samsungs) and all have replaceable batteries.
Something needs to be done about all this racist bullshit trolling. This is getting ridiculous. I am not in mood to read -1 comments but you can report very serious stuff to Slashdot admins rather than waiting for them to get -1.
Would any one in the western world even think of buying this car? Even for driving in the cities/small towns? I have a neighbor who uses a Mercedes 600 series with driver and he also has a Smart car which is made by Swatch and Mercedes.
I think large cities people may be interested especially because of parking nightmare. Smart is small but not cheap. This thing is small and cheap. Also I was waiting for a ugly, small creature which doesn't seems to be the case.
You can take a SIM card from any carrier and put it in any phone.
Provided that your phone is un-simlocked, yes. Besides when you say "GSM alone" does it exclude GRPS and UMTS? Cause we have that too. Not sure if we have EDGE tho.
For Americans who are new to SIM concept, it isn't necessarily evil thing to have a device SIM locked in Europe.
Networks buy huge amounts of high end, mid end, low end phones. They sell them for amazing cheap (or even give free) when customer guarantees they will use their network. Of course as they want a guarantee that guy won't make their rivals earn money with their sponsored handset, they get phones with "will work with that sim only" firmware/eeprom.
This is not a evil thing unless they are robbing people with non sponsored/free handsets and lock them. Of course, some monopoly or high market share abusing networks exist.
iPhone is really a different story since it is already expensive device.
GSM success comes from one thing: User may open their device battery cover, remove SIM and plug it to another phone. Once he/she likes that phone better, you have lost a customer forever. iPhone, having a price comparable to 3.5 G (not even 3G) N95 doesn't even allow end user to change battery of their own. As Apple user (not ipod/iphone) I can easily say Apple didn't really need those stupid tricks. They aren't 1990s shaky company anymore.
I own a Nokia 9300, Symbian S80 which is a lot "business" phone than N95 so there isn't huge activity. As Nokia moved to S60 on their mini laptop like devices, it will be unlikely.
So I was not watching Symbian scene a while. Yesterday I decided to browse and shop for some stuff, I couldn't believe my eyes. VNC client became open source and free, directly from Nokia along with a Symbian POSIX framework. Symbian added a open source, sourceforge like site, Nokia finally decides to give more iSync plugins directly from nokia.com/iSync page, they are giving away satellite navigation software.
We, Nokia smartphone users should really thank to iPhone while there is no way a Symbian S60 true user will feel comfortable with such a closed thing. Even SDK ships and unless a miracle happen, there won't be deep level running software like SMS Anti Spam managers.
While watching iPhone launch from a live webpage, I saw signs of OS X right at beginning and a professional OS X developer friend was on my contact list. I was saying "Wow, your software will fit great to iPhone screen, just XCode update will be needed" and thinking about that huge selection of OS X software at Versiontracker, I was wondering which will fit, which will need change...
It turned out to be closed device even without already secure (by nature) J2ME with lame excuses like "Nobody wants Java" (like they know if they have it).
That is the reason why I was flaming on every iPhone story, a complete blow of hope. I was expecting a true smartphone revolution which will also push Symbian/Linux guys. Just look how much Symbian scene changed after that half enabled device.
Lets say you don't include AACS, you still have to make it closed source because of billion dollar sound compression specs like Dolby, DTS won't open their formats just because some open source fanatics said so.
There are DTS decoders for Linux right now, they're just not legal. I think you're hitting on a major long-term issue with Linux. Linux development is moving out of the United States precisely because of legal threats and entanglements against US Linux developers. I've often said that "Linux on the desktop" will never gain serious traction in the USA for this reason. Sony or other established companies can't ignore legal issues and basically ship someones open source DTS plugin. I am not working at Sony or any device making company, I am just telling the current issues and why there can't be a open-source BluRay player officially supported by Sony or other commercial company. Imagine something strange happened and Sony posted a binary BluRayPlayer.rpm to their website right now. Imagine the feedback on Slashdot. That is what I am talking about.
Because we're the USA. The whole world is expected, and required, to bend over and do our bidding. Or that's how US industries think and act.
Think about it. If the US adopted DVB-C/DVB-T, then the rest of the world -- already manufacturing equipment to those standards -- would have an advantage over our own hometown businesses. This, of course, ignores the fact that almost none of this crap is even remotely "made in america". Of course it is reality but don't forget there is ATSC standard for that purpose. The thing those Intel/MS/Cable Company gang wants is not ATSC/C, they don't even want FEC to be involved. It signals they have a much more closed plan which will even exclude some American players.
They could combine TCP/IP with all-american ATSC if they wanted to.
Cell is much more than a Power4 variant. Check its specs, it is really not a -mcpu=cell passed to gcc.
I am not defending non working leech introduced copy protection formats, I am just saying 2 things.
1) Sony is very large and their divisions have nothing to do with each other. That impression of "Sony hates Linux" is plain wrong. I know people had marvelous support from Sony for Linux while they did Linux based pro color correction stuff.
2) Linux has very serious issue with closed source binary and commercial software combined. It is not a "problem", it is basically cultural difference. It is very hard to convince a company spend millions of dollars to ship a binary bluray player for linux which will be sold for money. For Hollywood b AACS being cracked already doesn't matter. Lets say you don't include AACS, you still have to make it closed source because of billion dollar sound compression specs like Dolby, DTS won't open their formats just because some open source fanatics said so. Did anyone actually buy Intervideo DVD Player for Linux for example?
3) For Hollywood, it is basically "hassle", I don't think they actually believe a non crackable format from start. They want people to hassle ripping the stuff and become legally responsible for their actions. Why did they keep shipping CSS? Are they that stupid not to figure one can deCss easily? I don't think so. They wanted people to issue "decss" command. It is same deal for AACS. You should also understand TV/Movie culture. 6-7 years ago, those guys were keeping even 1080P Betacam HD cassettes in super secure , guarded safes. They still do. It doesn't seem sane to them to release huge bandwidth 1080p mpeg4 with raw audio without any copy protection.
a less positive way to view it is that HD-DVD is easier to copy than blu-ray.
looks like the chances of getting a next gen dvd player for linux are out the window. If Sony was against Linux (as some think), why did they bother sponsoring/helping YDL vendor Terrasoft to ship a PS3 Linux for that -really strange- computer? http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/ydl/
One thing though, which Linux fan will use a completely closed binary application (likely payware, like intervideo) to watch Blu-ray movie on their Linux while they have a dual boot Windows at hand? I think that question stops many companies. It even started to effect OS X software scene since people can boot to Windows via Bootcamp or even run Windows stuff inside OS X.
I am personally expecting a DVD Player Blu-Ray update from Apple which will happen in current major (Leopard) version but OS X people doesn't really have big issues with closed source or DRM. Thing gets really complicated on Linux. People can barely stand to closed source Nvidia drivers you know.
It can only be good if it renders all the set-top-boxes obsolete - and cuts down on the number of remote controls I need to have With a really fast internet connection (e.g. Fiber) and a reasonably designed, easily used computer like Mac Mini or those small form factor dedicated Linux stuff, there is no need for a "cable box". That is what those media moguls don't understand. Or they really understand what is coming and try to convince people to use their closed, locked, overpriced "boxes" which has 2001 technology inside.
You don't have to "pirate" too, as far as I know, there are some great on demand services already established serving to USA.
A wireless keyboard and mouse, there you have 2 remote controls for everything:)
Of course, if Apple had brain to adopt some P2P Torrent technology and serve HD 1080p first class Hollywood/HBO content to Apple TV, things I mention would seem much more realistic now. Not my fault:)
With MS popping up in story and saying "It will be supported on NEXT generation of WINDOWS", they will likely use some joke format MS provides.
Intel and MS on same story gives a very bad clue: Windows (Media)
I have no clue how many times a format must fail before MS gives up sinking billions of Dollars. Industry decided: It is either MPEG4 or H264.
Whole planet is running TCP/IP (over DOCSis cable comms) mixed with DVB-C for 2 way cable and these idiots are "inventing" things. In fact, by the time this standard takes off, people will ask why they should get "Trusomething" signal to their boxes while their computer can stream H264/HD content on demand over web over ordinary TCP/IP, not UDP even. I think cable "box" will actually be something like Apple TV, an ordinary computer using very standard protocols. That is in case you want a remote control and old fashion channel zapping. No need for "Tru" things, there is already a true established standard named ATSC (DVB-C if you are European) and TCP/IP, DOCSIS etc.
It's not like they are the only manufacturer to make televisions.
Let them invent their own standard if they want to, with blackjack, and hookers! So, you are speaking about a "standard" with very interesting quotes like: "CableLabs said it has inked licensing agreements with Intel Corp. (INTC) and Broadcom Corp. (BRCM) to develop chips to run the software. And Microsoft Corp. is expected to integrate the standard into future versions of its Windows operating system for personal computers."
and you are happy that Sony, their professional division has not bought this idea. Why?
Sony in TV broadcast scene has some amazing marketshare but they have always sticked with standards like MPEG, SMPTE even on Betacam HD which they could really, easily make a "Sony format" device.
It is almost funny to watch people having no clue about industry speak about Sony Professional division.
Lets see: 1) They could stick with an already established, documented, vendor neutral standard like ATSC (for Europe- DVB-C) but they aren't planning to. 2) They could use ordinary TCP/IP/HTML/Planned MPEG extensions for 2 way communications but they didn't. Intel and their best friend MS on board, MS says they will integrate it to future version of their WINDOWS operating systems. 3) They don't want FCC (who will likely ask what is ATSC for) 4) Broadcom participation at this case doesn't mean H264, it may really mean VC-1 with Windows Media DRM layer.
If you didn't get the plan and you are very happy that Sony didn't buy the idea, keep that happiness. Sony is evil, much more evil than Windows Media manufacturer right?
There are some 10-15 million rabid Sony hating Xbox/Microsoft fans in the US. They will support any 'not Sony format' with a fanatical commitment that is easily mistaken for broad consumer support.
Toshiba fell victim to believing HD-DVD was going to ever be supported by anyone beyond that niche demographic. And it cost hundreds of millions in their losing battle against BluRay. HD DVD could be a serious competitor if there wasn't MS and their OS fascist media division wasn't involved. They showed signs of "Windows only" from the start, they could sit and write HD DVD.Framework via XCode to support OS X, they could release a not cheap but working fine Quicktime export plugin for VC-1, they could make Roxio (Adaptec) support HD-DVD recorders on their OS X consumer products, they could help Linux guys sort out basic data recording, they could plug into OS X professional tools like Final Cut suite, AVID suite to support HD-DVD output.
What did they do? All the media industry, using Sony/Apple devices daily saw Windows Vista laptops made by Toshiba supporting HD-DVD. Imagine you are a high end Hollywood technical person using Mac OS X and you don't even have basic data recording capability if you use your Mac. You will choose HD-DVD while you are happily backing up those DV files to BluRay?
For a long time, if you have good money to spare, you can buy a Firewire Blu-Ray recorder from Lacie, install Toast 8 (comes free) and even use BluRay RW on OS X. HD-DVD was basically non existent on anything except Windows.
I really don't get this "Sony hate" anyway. It uses H264, has Java which is totally open now, they sponsored TerraSoft solutions to ship a PS/3 Linux, they use industry standard frameworks like OpenGL on Sony PS3... Just because we hate Sony, we should support MS'es best friend Toshiba and XBox 360 introduced format?
Toshiba should have chosen their friends well. On media industry, you can't dare to mess BOTH Sony and Apple and get successful. You can't get adopted when you are friend of a company which sees everything except Windows doing that "multimedia thing" as a loss. We speak about a company who hated the fact that Linux/FreeBSD/OS X people can happily watch Youtube via Flash technology and decided to kill (!) it with SilverLight.
With current prices, you are shipping $30-$40 , high end 1080P content having audiophile like features, your target demographic is NOT XBox 360 gamers. They will happily download those 720p highly compressed x264 torrents, they will pay $30-$40 for a game they play. Sony made clever choice while they added everything to make PS3 a high end home multimedia/communication central. There are many people who has Ps3 and uses it just like a very high end personal entertainment device rather than gaming. Same for PSP too. I got friends having PSP but only using it as a handheld multimedia device.
Adobe's core business/design users doesn't run Linux so they don't spend millions to convert their products to Linux OS. It has nothing to do with Linux being dead or something. The professionals paying that money to those suites and enterprise solutions either runs Windows or OS X.
A good example would be Adobe Premiere Pro. On OS X land, an AVI based video editor is a joke. Everything is Quicktime based. They have never cared to move Premiere Pro line to PowerPC OS X since they really knew everyone either runs Final Cut Pro or AVID and see Premiere as an amateur product.
When Intel Macs shipped, they released a Wine based Premiere Pro and it didn't even make news on most pro oriented sites. Can you think a Adobe sized company not being able to code Premiere for RISC based processors? Of course it wasn't the case. They knew nobody would care and they would end up a millions of dollars cost Premiere Pro.app in use by 1000 studios at most.
Of course there are Linux based things having huge prestige. For example "Da Vinci" colour correction system only exists on Irix and Linux but you won't be able to figure they run Linux. Unless he is a computer interested person, that Hollywood colour artist doesn't know too.
Redhat's core business means Enterprise, large scale installations, racing with AIX/Z OS on Mainframes.
I don't think they are actually caring to race with Ubuntu or any easy desktop Linux. RPM is very widely used for Business kinds of things. I am not saying apt or deb are desktop things of course. I am saying Redhat cares about what their core business wants. It seems they want RPM for some reason.
PS: I was moderator until I replied to one comment, I had no clue which genius marked you as "offtopic". It seems newbie Slashdotters think this is "digg" and marking as "offtopic" means burying as "I don't agree" or something.
countdown to new CEO saying "I love Microsoft!" and signing a deal? Unlike Novell and Suse, Redhat is in very good financial shape. They don't need to sign any deal or hire MS.NET emulator coder trojan people.
Slashdot Mirror
It has been tried. The media was quick to get alerted about it. A special thank you for horrible Java implementation of Windows that time which sent a "heads up" to Sun and every geek/professional having something to do with Java :)
http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=405425&messageID=1966682
http://www.ca.com/us/securityadvisor/pest/pest.aspx?id=453059998
It was based on Java, was distributed by Java P2P application. One should be glad that Macs were still not that popular that time.
http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/cmod.to?coid=-33781
$3K for a comparable system with an optical drive, solid-state HDD, etc. No backlit keyboard, maybe, but still food for thought. And I AM a macbook pro, ibook, and mac mini owner.
I'm just saying.
-b And you can change battery yourself
If more Apple fans/customers start bitching about these insane decisions, things will get better. Or? I already have a self build PC with Vista and add $400 amount of utility to "fix" it plan in hand.
Apple really "lost it" after the iPhone shipped. Most of the non loudmouth actual user profile is very alerted about it. Professional companies started asking "cross license in case something really more stupid happens" questions to Adobe. It seems Apple is listening to those Digg freaks rather than their core customer base.
I don't really think it's a great idea to make the battery integrated on the Air, but that's not even a straw man, it's more like a stick figure. It is not a smart phone, it is a Linux running full feature computer which you can install anything or compile your own. It is a hit on general public shopping sites like Amazon, not "think geek".
For Nokia: If it runs Linux, it is handheld computer. If it runs Symbian: It is smartphone or a business laptop/smartphone creature like 9000 (now E90) series.
Apple wasted a great idea for stupid business reasons as usual lately. People supposed to work in professional IT media or being fan of them adds more to these stupid decisions. Stop apologizing for them. If a company does put a non user replaceable part which is guaranteed to fail in matter of a year, they are greedy. It doesn't make any change if it is Adobe, Apple, HP, Microsoft.
Even Nokia, the indisputable king on mobile couldn't dare to ship any product without user changeable battery.
(seriously, what is with comments like this? firewire has never become a true standard in laptops. I've only ever owned one laptop with firewire. and subnotebooks have been successful without built-in optical drives for years. this new laptop fits fine within the category it was built for) Firewire (IEE1394) is a true standard coming with every high end Laptop out there. A person buying a $1700 laptop (or $3K) won't trust his/her data to your average sub speed USB junk. High end cameras doesn't even do anything over USB. There is no high end audio equipment for USB2 because of a basic reason: Its advertised speed is completely false. Do you think a $1700 laptop owner have a el cheapo USB2 camera?
As Intel have "special" agreement with Apple, they could be ones to blame for single USB2 junk being offered. USB2 is still being considered a joke even while the Firewire 3200 didn't ship yet.
This is the cost of exclusive agreements with "Tel" part of Wintel gang.
All Macintosh owners out there either own or owned a Mac with Firewire port and they are enjoying 40MB/80MB rates with their external drives. Apple kinda forgot their user profile lately. For USB2 el Cheapo people, there are far cheaper Laptops offered by no name companies.
This is a flash exploit so no browser is immune. I would say in other way, if some miracle happens and Adobe acts quick to issue a Flash update/hotfix for it, ALL browsers will be immune.
I keep it on because:
1) I can't be bugged with port configurations just to download a single linux ISO image via azureus and turning off when not needed
2) I use a Apple Airport Basestation which doesn't use uPNP, it uses NAT-PMP which is all documented
3) I use OS X only
You are hitting wrong target. It is NOT uPNP (once more, again!) , it is its stupid implementation by MSFT and their Taiwan buddies. If Adobe doesn't release a Flash plugin update covering this issue in a WEEK, they are to blame too.
Millions of devices, operating systems, software are using uPNP happily otherwise.
If uPNP is a godsend to those people... they need to get a better God. uPNP is not "evil" or anything, the implementation matters. Turning port 554 on while needed and turning off dynamically is much more secure than keeping it open 24/7 in case you will watch a 10 min streaming show one day, at random time.
uPNP works all fine under Linux, OS X, FreeBSD. There seems to be one usual suspect there causing the problem and as you know, it is "more evil than satan himself"
Why would one throw away features instead of using a well supported, not stupidly coded router?
If you disable UPNP, what will you do with streaming video/audio, bittorrent etc?
I use an Apple brand Airport and if this thing was hit by the mentioned issue, I would ask Apple about status for fix and if it is a real threat, if I didn't get a meaningful answer or no answer at all, I would go to market to buy a better supported router which has frequent firmware updates covering such issues, unplug my Apple one and never buy anything related to networking from Apple at all.
Reading the comments about this story, people suggests block javascript, flash, give up default browser and at last, give up uPNP.
I agree to changing that "admin" funny thing and likely "1234" password (and disable remote admin!) but I don't agree to losing features. If the vendor doesn't care about such a major issue, what if some UDP based attack uncovered? Lets turn off UDP too?
This issue should be used as a great benchmark for the current router/wireless industry. Lets see who updates their firmware and who doesn't.
As an Apple airport basestation owner, I will be watching those D-Link etc. software updates. No kidding.
http://www.apple.com/keyboard/
(yes, too much karma to spare)
I think large cities people may be interested especially because of parking nightmare. Smart is small but not cheap. This thing is small and cheap. Also I was waiting for a ugly, small creature which doesn't seems to be the case.
You can take a SIM card from any carrier and put it in any phone.
Provided that your phone is un-simlocked, yes. Besides when you say "GSM alone" does it exclude GRPS and UMTS? Cause we have that too. Not sure if we have EDGE tho.
For Americans who are new to SIM concept, it isn't necessarily evil thing to have a device SIM locked in Europe.Networks buy huge amounts of high end, mid end, low end phones. They sell them for amazing cheap (or even give free) when customer guarantees they will use their network. Of course as they want a guarantee that guy won't make their rivals earn money with their sponsored handset, they get phones with "will work with that sim only" firmware/eeprom.
This is not a evil thing unless they are robbing people with non sponsored/free handsets and lock them. Of course, some monopoly or high market share abusing networks exist.
iPhone is really a different story since it is already expensive device.
GSM success comes from one thing: User may open their device battery cover, remove SIM and plug it to another phone. Once he/she likes that phone better, you have lost a customer forever. iPhone, having a price comparable to 3.5 G (not even 3G) N95 doesn't even allow end user to change battery of their own. As Apple user (not ipod/iphone) I can easily say Apple didn't really need those stupid tricks. They aren't 1990s shaky company anymore.
I own a Nokia 9300, Symbian S80 which is a lot "business" phone than N95 so there isn't huge activity. As Nokia moved to S60 on their mini laptop like devices, it will be unlikely.
So I was not watching Symbian scene a while. Yesterday I decided to browse and shop for some stuff, I couldn't believe my eyes. VNC client became open source and free, directly from Nokia along with a Symbian POSIX framework. Symbian added a open source, sourceforge like site, Nokia finally decides to give more iSync plugins directly from nokia.com/iSync page, they are giving away satellite navigation software.
We, Nokia smartphone users should really thank to iPhone while there is no way a Symbian S60 true user will feel comfortable with such a closed thing. Even SDK ships and unless a miracle happen, there won't be deep level running software like SMS Anti Spam managers.
While watching iPhone launch from a live webpage, I saw signs of OS X right at beginning and a professional OS X developer friend was on my contact list. I was saying "Wow, your software will fit great to iPhone screen, just XCode update will be needed" and thinking about that huge selection of OS X software at Versiontracker, I was wondering which will fit, which will need change...
It turned out to be closed device even without already secure (by nature) J2ME with lame excuses like "Nobody wants Java" (like they know if they have it).
That is the reason why I was flaming on every iPhone story, a complete blow of hope. I was expecting a true smartphone revolution which will also push Symbian/Linux guys. Just look how much Symbian scene changed after that half enabled device.
There are DTS decoders for Linux right now, they're just not legal. I think you're hitting on a major long-term issue with Linux. Linux development is moving out of the United States precisely because of legal threats and entanglements against US Linux developers. I've often said that "Linux on the desktop" will never gain serious traction in the USA for this reason. Sony or other established companies can't ignore legal issues and basically ship someones open source DTS plugin. I am not working at Sony or any device making company, I am just telling the current issues and why there can't be a open-source BluRay player officially supported by Sony or other commercial company. Imagine something strange happened and Sony posted a binary BluRayPlayer.rpm to their website right now. Imagine the feedback on Slashdot. That is what I am talking about.
Think about it. If the US adopted DVB-C/DVB-T, then the rest of the world -- already manufacturing equipment to those standards -- would have an advantage over our own hometown businesses. This, of course, ignores the fact that almost none of this crap is even remotely "made in america". Of course it is reality but don't forget there is ATSC standard for that purpose. The thing those Intel/MS/Cable Company gang wants is not ATSC/C, they don't even want FEC to be involved. It signals they have a much more closed plan which will even exclude some American players.
They could combine TCP/IP with all-american ATSC if they wanted to.
Cell is much more than a Power4 variant. Check its specs, it is really not a -mcpu=cell passed to gcc.
I am not defending non working leech introduced copy protection formats, I am just saying 2 things.
1) Sony is very large and their divisions have nothing to do with each other. That impression of "Sony hates Linux" is plain wrong. I know people had marvelous support from Sony for Linux while they did Linux based pro color correction stuff.
2) Linux has very serious issue with closed source binary and commercial software combined. It is not a "problem", it is basically cultural difference. It is very hard to convince a company spend millions of dollars to ship a binary bluray player for linux which will be sold for money. For Hollywood b AACS being cracked already doesn't matter. Lets say you don't include AACS, you still have to make it closed source because of billion dollar sound compression specs like Dolby, DTS won't open their formats just because some open source fanatics said so. Did anyone actually buy Intervideo DVD Player for Linux for example?
3) For Hollywood, it is basically "hassle", I don't think they actually believe a non crackable format from start. They want people to hassle ripping the stuff and become legally responsible for their actions. Why did they keep shipping CSS? Are they that stupid not to figure one can deCss easily? I don't think so. They wanted people to issue "decss" command. It is same deal for AACS. You should also understand TV/Movie culture. 6-7 years ago, those guys were keeping even 1080P Betacam HD cassettes in super secure , guarded safes. They still do. It doesn't seem sane to them to release huge bandwidth 1080p mpeg4 with raw audio without any copy protection.
looks like the chances of getting a next gen dvd player for linux are out the window. If Sony was against Linux (as some think), why did they bother sponsoring/helping YDL vendor Terrasoft to ship a PS3 Linux for that -really strange- computer? http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/ydl/
One thing though, which Linux fan will use a completely closed binary application (likely payware, like intervideo) to watch Blu-ray movie on their Linux while they have a dual boot Windows at hand? I think that question stops many companies. It even started to effect OS X software scene since people can boot to Windows via Bootcamp or even run Windows stuff inside OS X.
I am personally expecting a DVD Player Blu-Ray update from Apple which will happen in current major (Leopard) version but OS X people doesn't really have big issues with closed source or DRM. Thing gets really complicated on Linux. People can barely stand to closed source Nvidia drivers you know.
You don't have to "pirate" too, as far as I know, there are some great on demand services already established serving to USA.
A wireless keyboard and mouse, there you have 2 remote controls for everything
Of course, if Apple had brain to adopt some P2P Torrent technology and serve HD 1080p first class Hollywood/HBO content to Apple TV, things I mention would seem much more realistic now. Not my fault
With MS popping up in story and saying "It will be supported on NEXT generation of WINDOWS", they will likely use some joke format MS provides.
Intel and MS on same story gives a very bad clue: Windows (Media)
I have no clue how many times a format must fail before MS gives up sinking billions of Dollars. Industry decided: It is either MPEG4 or H264.
Whole planet is running TCP/IP (over DOCSis cable comms) mixed with DVB-C for 2 way cable and these idiots are "inventing" things. In fact, by the time this standard takes off, people will ask why they should get "Trusomething" signal to their boxes while their computer can stream H264/HD content on demand over web over ordinary TCP/IP, not UDP even. I think cable "box" will actually be something like Apple TV, an ordinary computer using very standard protocols. That is in case you want a remote control and old fashion channel zapping. No need for "Tru" things, there is already a true established standard named ATSC (DVB-C if you are European) and TCP/IP, DOCSIS etc.
Let them invent their own standard if they want to, with blackjack, and hookers! So, you are speaking about a "standard" with very interesting quotes like:
"CableLabs said it has inked licensing agreements with Intel Corp. (INTC) and Broadcom Corp. (BRCM) to develop chips to run the software. And Microsoft Corp. is expected to integrate the standard into future versions of its Windows operating system for personal computers."
and you are happy that Sony, their professional division has not bought this idea. Why?
Sony in TV broadcast scene has some amazing marketshare but they have always sticked with standards like MPEG, SMPTE even on Betacam HD which they could really, easily make a "Sony format" device.
It is almost funny to watch people having no clue about industry speak about Sony Professional division.
Lets see:
1) They could stick with an already established, documented, vendor neutral standard like ATSC (for Europe- DVB-C) but they aren't planning to.
2) They could use ordinary TCP/IP/HTML/Planned MPEG extensions for 2 way communications but they didn't. Intel and their best friend MS on board, MS says they will integrate it to future version of their WINDOWS operating systems.
3) They don't want FCC (who will likely ask what is ATSC for)
4) Broadcom participation at this case doesn't mean H264, it may really mean VC-1 with Windows Media DRM layer.
If you didn't get the plan and you are very happy that Sony didn't buy the idea, keep that happiness. Sony is evil, much more evil than Windows Media manufacturer right?
Toshiba fell victim to believing HD-DVD was going to ever be supported by anyone beyond that niche demographic. And it cost hundreds of millions in their losing battle against BluRay. HD DVD could be a serious competitor if there wasn't MS and their OS fascist media division wasn't involved. They showed signs of "Windows only" from the start, they could sit and write HD DVD.Framework via XCode to support OS X, they could release a not cheap but working fine Quicktime export plugin for VC-1, they could make Roxio (Adaptec) support HD-DVD recorders on their OS X consumer products, they could help Linux guys sort out basic data recording, they could plug into OS X professional tools like Final Cut suite, AVID suite to support HD-DVD output.
What did they do? All the media industry, using Sony/Apple devices daily saw Windows Vista laptops made by Toshiba supporting HD-DVD. Imagine you are a high end Hollywood technical person using Mac OS X and you don't even have basic data recording capability if you use your Mac. You will choose HD-DVD while you are happily backing up those DV files to BluRay?
For a long time, if you have good money to spare, you can buy a Firewire Blu-Ray recorder from Lacie, install Toast 8 (comes free) and even use BluRay RW on OS X. HD-DVD was basically non existent on anything except Windows.
I really don't get this "Sony hate" anyway. It uses H264, has Java which is totally open now, they sponsored TerraSoft solutions to ship a PS/3 Linux, they use industry standard frameworks like OpenGL on Sony PS3... Just because we hate Sony, we should support MS'es best friend Toshiba and XBox 360 introduced format?
Toshiba should have chosen their friends well. On media industry, you can't dare to mess BOTH Sony and Apple and get successful. You can't get adopted when you are friend of a company which sees everything except Windows doing that "multimedia thing" as a loss. We speak about a company who hated the fact that Linux/FreeBSD/OS X people can happily watch Youtube via Flash technology and decided to kill (!) it with SilverLight.
With current prices, you are shipping $30-$40 , high end 1080P content having audiophile like features, your target demographic is NOT XBox 360 gamers. They will happily download those 720p highly compressed x264 torrents, they will pay $30-$40 for a game they play. Sony made clever choice while they added everything to make PS3 a high end home multimedia/communication central. There are many people who has Ps3 and uses it just like a very high end personal entertainment device rather than gaming. Same for PSP too. I got friends having PSP but only using it as a handheld multimedia device.
Adobe's core business/design users doesn't run Linux so they don't spend millions to convert their products to Linux OS. It has nothing to do with Linux being dead or something. The professionals paying that money to those suites and enterprise solutions either runs Windows or OS X.
A good example would be Adobe Premiere Pro. On OS X land, an AVI based video editor is a joke. Everything is Quicktime based. They have never cared to move Premiere Pro line to PowerPC OS X since they really knew everyone either runs Final Cut Pro or AVID and see Premiere as an amateur product.
When Intel Macs shipped, they released a Wine based Premiere Pro and it didn't even make news on most pro oriented sites. Can you think a Adobe sized company not being able to code Premiere for RISC based processors? Of course it wasn't the case. They knew nobody would care and they would end up a millions of dollars cost Premiere Pro.app in use by 1000 studios at most.
Of course there are Linux based things having huge prestige. For example "Da Vinci" colour correction system only exists on Irix and Linux but you won't be able to figure they run Linux. Unless he is a computer interested person, that Hollywood colour artist doesn't know too.
Redhat's core business means Enterprise, large scale installations, racing with AIX/Z OS on Mainframes.
I don't think they are actually caring to race with Ubuntu or any easy desktop Linux. RPM is very widely used for Business kinds of things. I am not saying apt or deb are desktop things of course. I am saying Redhat cares about what their core business wants. It seems they want RPM for some reason.
PS: I was moderator until I replied to one comment, I had no clue which genius marked you as "offtopic". It seems newbie Slashdotters think this is "digg" and marking as "offtopic" means burying as "I don't agree" or something.