..for the first time (it was just released in europe), and after seeing the linked android tablet in the description, two things come to my mind:
1) 7'' might be a WIN. I found the ipad extremely gorgeus and fast, etc... but it was too uncomfortable to use because it was just heavy enough to use with both hands, but as soon as you need to interact with it a lot (i.e. almost anything other than scrolling) you need to switch to holding it with one hand and typing/interacting with the other hand. And it was way too heavy for me to do that comfortably. That's why I think 7'' or 8'' might have been way better.
2) that android tablet will probably have a much poorer battery life (yes, pure speculation) and I doubt they will have access to android market, so.. (oh, and I hope they dont redo the entire homescreen/UI because that will probably mean they somehow f*cked it up)
I am eager to see 8'' android tablets made with great hardware, great battery life and stock android so it is easier for them to update the damn thing. Also, I think 128MB or 256MB RAM is not enough. (see this one, for instance http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.39448)
I really dont mean any offense but... have you ever used an android device? or an iphone? I really dont understand whats wrong with the vertical scrolling. I honestly see no need for a dedicated scroll area when the whole scrollable surface serves that purpose. Sure, it might suck for some other devices (i.e. symbian, etc, who did not get it close to "right"). But on iphone? android? I think most users find it perfect just how it is. Maybe I just misunderstood? What would be the advantages?
that'd be true if later android versions were not backwards-compatible, but they are. If your app breaks, it means you were using undocumented features which you have been warned that would change.
The ONLY issue here is when you have a device which won't be updated (say, the G1) and there is an app which specifically requires at least android >=2. That is uncommon and probably means that app would not properly work on your hardware.
IMHO, that should not apply to systems based on sandboxing. You see, the system has been designed in order not to require package dependencies. You can't install system files, everything is sandboxed so your app can only go as far as the dalvik+android APIs let you go.
Also, android intents make sure there are no strict app to app dependencies (i.e. this app uses this other app).
I think Android itself is proof enough - over 50.000 apps and there is still no need for an apt-like system.
Actually, you can build with a modern SDK while having a minSDK attribute set to 3 (android 1.5) so your app will be compatible with android >=1.5 (99.9% android phones are 1.5 or newer), and on 1.5 you can have access to so many things, it will be difficult to really have a need of doing something which is not possible. Live wallpapers and maybe some advanced graphic functions will not be available, and the hardware of those "legacy" devices won't be able to handle that, anyways.
So there are only a few things left which are not possible, like account manager integration, the cool Log.wtf() function and a few more, but nothing extremely important, I'd say...
That is not possible since everything that runs (from BIOS to the process which runs the isolated SPE) is hardware-checked for being unaltered and genuine.
I wonder if this hardware checks could be bypassed by a similar glitching technique, too...
Can somebody please explain to me why a kernel module (with fewer privileges than the HV) is able to create a "virtual segment, indicating that the hypervisor should store the HTAB associated with it at a specific address."?
I guess that functionality is needed somehow, and therefore accessible to kernel modules;
otherwise it would not make sense to me that they exposed unnecessary calls that mess with sensible stuff like the HTAB location (which contains the main segment, etc..) and ultimately lead to exploits like this.
Well, I am one of those that has access to the Google Wave development sandbox, and I think its certainly NOT overhyped.
Sure, its not yet a finished product, many things are missing (those are quite a few, btw), but for those things that are present (bugs aside) it has been FAR more efficient to communicate than over, say, email or IM (when chatting with more than one or two persons).
After using Wave with a couple of friends for discussing several topics, such as: * when and where should we go to watch this movie? or.. * Lets just put up ideas for android applications and analyze and comment on them
I must say it is *really* useful, and I think it would scale well for larger groups.
After using it on a daily basis, when I go back to mail and mailing groups you feel like it gets chaotic really fast. You can only append stuff to the document. You cannot edit it, you cannot insert, you cannot inline reply (you can fold/unfold the comment, and when someone replies to you it becomes like an embedded thread, later on you'll be able to export the wave as a document without those inline replies)
Oh, and sharing "rich text" or just files or pictures is >>>> email
I think email is *much* more noisy. for chatting I still prefer IM, though, for everything else, wave.
Whenever i hear someone say opera works just fine with gmail i shut down firefox, download the latest opera release and try it out.
Unfortunately, i always keep coming back to firefox, since it simply doesn't. At least for me, dunno why it should be different for someone else...
- There are issues when minimizing chat windows, the background does not get repainted properly.
Also, from time to time the textedit inputs start behaving strangely:
- Suddenly i can't middleclick-paste (the browser interprets i want to go to another page, which is something very annoying since it keeps disconnecting me from gmail)
- other times it writes two newlines instead of just one whenever i press enter. (but this does not only happen with gmail)
Unfortunately, its offen all those issues combined, and in the end i just shut it down and go back to firefox, although i wish gmail just worked flawlessly.
And yes, gmail works fine, its mostly the new and shiny interface combined with web-based gtalk where opera does not deliver. And being my most often used webapp i simply can't ignore that:-(
He said that the company had already fixed an open-source version of the software and was working with its partners, T-Mobile and HTC, to offer fixes for its current customers.
so anybody who is impatient enough should be already able to replace the browser with a custom build.:)
You don't actually need to replace the entire firmware of the phone.
The Application Framework is designed in a way that permits you to replace any application with your own application. Be it the dialer, contacts manager or web browser.
That said, i would still like to know if there are already any efforts of trying to replace the entire firmware. I presume the HTC phone is designed (or android has been modified) in a way that prevents that kind of tampering, but i still have not heard of any hacking attempts.
The important part says:
"We have never mentioned how we will solve this matter (storage), but we will deliver a better solution to storage than the current one."
It _nowhere_ confirms it WON'T be a HD (although you could _guess_ it won't be).
Some news sites have even taken it as far as saying: "they will deliver a better solution than a hard drive" - which is nowhere near reality if you read the original.
But anyways, I do not wish to argue with you about that. Whether it is illegal or not is irrelevant to this topic. The developer wants to know WHY people pirate his games. Even though, as I already mentioned, I have not played any of his games, I do believe it might be interesting for him to hear people's opinions, since i am sure my experience could well be applied to his games instead of nintendo's games.
You know, the US is not the whole world. In my country it is legal to download music and games as long as you keep it for yourself and don't make any profit off it.
I am a student that does not earn any money. But i love video games. I play them a lot AND play a lot of them in my free time. I have several options:
1. Do not pirate, and only get to play a few games a year.
2. Pirate, and get to play lots of them.
You see, there is no option like "3. Do not pirate and play lots of them. " Also, it is very important to note that option 2. includes buying all the games i would have bought through option 1.
Since i do not know this developer's games, i will mention my experience with my last video game console, the Wii:
The signal-to-noise ratio for this system is crap. I have bought Zelda, wii play, tony hawk, Guitar Hero and Mario Kart. I also have, however, pirated many other games. Why? I simply cannot afford playing every game i want to play. Most of them, however, have only been "distractions". I would not have bought them anyway. The main reason being they are expensive and i feel most of them are not worth it. Sadly, i also buy games that were not worth buying, and end up not buying some games i should have bought instead.
Why is it so common nowadays for linux distributions to include *BETA* software (as complex as a browser can be) in their releases? Sure, there can be some heavily tested and simple programs left as beta, but firefox? The web browser is a heavily used and substantial tool these days..
Firefox 3 Beta 5 takes my CPU usage to 100% easily, while firefox 2.x does not.
is it so hard to stick with stable, tested software ? bleeding edge is not always better.
Slashdot Mirror
The sun got spots and now they are missing? Might be because of the suncream
..for the first time (it was just released in europe), and after seeing the linked android tablet in the description, two things come to my mind:
1) 7'' might be a WIN. I found the ipad extremely gorgeus and fast, etc... but it was too uncomfortable to use because it was just heavy enough to use with both hands, but as soon as you need to interact with it a lot (i.e. almost anything other than scrolling) you need to switch to holding it with one hand and typing/interacting with the other hand. And it was way too heavy for me to do that comfortably.
That's why I think 7'' or 8'' might have been way better.
2) that android tablet will probably have a much poorer battery life (yes, pure speculation) and I doubt they will have access to android market, so.. (oh, and I hope they dont redo the entire homescreen/UI because that will probably mean they somehow f*cked it up)
I am eager to see 8'' android tablets made with great hardware, great battery life and stock android so it is easier for them to update the damn thing.
Also, I think 128MB or 256MB RAM is not enough. (see this one, for instance http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.39448)
I really dont mean any offense but... have you ever used an android device? or an iphone? I really dont understand whats wrong with the vertical scrolling. I honestly see no need for a dedicated scroll area when the whole scrollable surface serves that purpose.
Sure, it might suck for some other devices (i.e. symbian, etc, who did not get it close to "right"). But on iphone? android? I think most users find it perfect just how it is.
Maybe I just misunderstood? What would be the advantages?
that'd be true if later android versions were not backwards-compatible, but they are.
If your app breaks, it means you were using undocumented features which you have been warned that would change.
The ONLY issue here is when you have a device which won't be updated (say, the G1) and there is an app which specifically requires at least android >=2.
That is uncommon and probably means that app would not properly work on your hardware.
IMHO, that should not apply to systems based on sandboxing. You see, the system has been designed in order not to require package dependencies.
You can't install system files, everything is sandboxed so your app can only go as far as the dalvik+android APIs let you go.
Also, android intents make sure there are no strict app to app dependencies (i.e. this app uses this other app).
I think Android itself is proof enough - over 50.000 apps and there is still no need for an apt-like system.
Actually, you can build with a modern SDK while having a minSDK attribute set to 3 (android 1.5) so your app will be compatible with android >=1.5 (99.9% android phones are 1.5 or newer), and on 1.5 you can have access to so many things, it will be difficult to really have a need of doing something which is not possible.
Live wallpapers and maybe some advanced graphic functions will not be available, and the hardware of those "legacy" devices won't be able to handle that, anyways.
So there are only a few things left which are not possible, like account manager integration, the cool Log.wtf() function and a few more, but nothing extremely important, I'd say...
I wonder when we will have the equivalent computing power at home? :)
Exactly, thats why they created the iPad!
That is not possible since everything that runs (from BIOS to the process which runs the isolated SPE) is hardware-checked for being unaltered and genuine.
I wonder if this hardware checks could be bypassed by a similar glitching technique, too...
Can somebody please explain to me why a kernel module (with fewer privileges than the HV) is able to create a "virtual segment, indicating that the hypervisor should store the HTAB associated with it at a specific address."?
I guess that functionality is needed somehow, and therefore accessible to kernel modules;
otherwise it would not make sense to me that they exposed unnecessary calls that mess with sensible stuff like the HTAB location (which contains the main segment, etc..) and ultimately lead to exploits like this.
Any insight, thoughts?
While indeed this opens the door for PS3 hacking, the PS3 has not yet been fully "hacked".
See http://streetskaterfu.blogspot.com/2010/01/ps3-is-hacked-urban-legend-continues.html
The security architecture of the PS3 is designed in a way to prevent hacks like this to fully compromise the system.
Another interesting read, by Kanna Shimizu, http://dslab.lzu.edu.cn:8080/members/zhangwei/doc/Cell_Broadband_Engine_processor_vault_security_architecture.pdf
Well, I am one of those that has access to the Google Wave development sandbox,
and I think its certainly NOT overhyped.
Sure, its not yet a finished product, many things are missing (those are quite a few, btw), but for those things that are present (bugs aside) it has been FAR more efficient to communicate than over, say, email or IM (when chatting with more than one or two persons).
After using Wave with a couple of friends for discussing several topics, such as:
* when and where should we go to watch this movie? or..
* Lets just put up ideas for android applications and analyze and comment on them
I must say it is *really* useful, and I think it would scale well for larger groups.
After using it on a daily basis, when I go back to mail and mailing groups you feel like it gets chaotic really fast.
You can only append stuff to the document. You cannot edit it, you cannot insert, you cannot inline reply (you can fold/unfold the comment, and when someone replies to you it becomes like an embedded thread, later on you'll be able to export the wave as a document without those inline replies)
Oh, and sharing "rich text" or just files or pictures is >>>> email
I think email is *much* more noisy.
for chatting I still prefer IM, though, for everything else, wave.
just my 0.2
Whenever i hear someone say opera works just fine with gmail i shut down firefox, download the latest opera release and try it out.
Unfortunately, i always keep coming back to firefox, since it simply doesn't. At least for me, dunno why it should be different for someone else...
- There are issues when minimizing chat windows, the background does not get repainted properly.
Also, from time to time the textedit inputs start behaving strangely:
- Suddenly i can't middleclick-paste (the browser interprets i want to go to another page, which is something very annoying since it keeps disconnecting me from gmail)
- other times it writes two newlines instead of just one whenever i press enter. (but this does not only happen with gmail)
Unfortunately, its offen all those issues combined, and in the end i just shut it down and go back to firefox, although i wish gmail just worked flawlessly.
And yes, gmail works fine, its mostly the new and shiny interface combined with web-based gtalk where opera does not deliver. And being my most often used webapp i simply can't ignore that :-(
The device is NOT open.
Android IS.
and btw, i think with the G1 you get android modified by HTC.
Once you hack the device and put the original, open android built by yourself, you get an open phone.
from TFA:
He said that the company had already fixed an open-source version of the software and was working with its partners, T-Mobile and HTC, to offer fixes for its current customers.
so anybody who is impatient enough should be already able to replace the browser with a custom build. :)
You don't actually need to replace the entire firmware of the phone.
The Application Framework is designed in a way that permits you to replace any application with your own application. Be it the dialer, contacts manager or web browser.
That said, i would still like to know if there are already any efforts of trying to replace the entire firmware. I presume the HTC phone is designed (or android has been modified) in a way that prevents that kind of tampering, but i still have not heard of any hacking attempts.
Hello reverse engineers ? :-)
Actually, if you read the original interview (in spanish) here
it literally says:
"Estamos trabajando en una soluciÃn de almacenamiento y es especialmente importante en América, porque nuestros consumidores estan usando wii points para la consola virtual y Wiiware, y quiero que la gente tenga la expectativa correcta; nunca hemos dicho que sera un disco duro, ni hemos mencionado como solucionaremos esta cuestion, pero vamos a entregar una mejor manera de almacenamiento para los juegos, de la que hoy tenemos"
The important part says:
"We have never mentioned how we will solve this matter (storage), but we will deliver a better solution to storage than the current one."
It _nowhere_ confirms it WON'T be a HD (although you could _guess_ it won't be). Some news sites have even taken it as far as saying: "they will deliver a better solution than a hard drive" - which is nowhere near reality if you read the original.
Has nothing to do with Uncanny valley, well, almost..
This is amazing stuff, also something which can be used for future computer animations:
http://www.garry.tv/?p=623
I sometimes wonder where all those "magical algorithms" come from.
i'd pay for games if they were native to Linux operating systems.
And this is relevant to an article about software piracy how?
Are you kidding me?
This was a BIG complaint in slashdot - along with DRM - in the previous thread where the pirates opinion was asked for.
Having more games native to Linux means you won't have issues trying to run them under wine, often losing some performance, because you won't have to.
You also won't have that feeling that you (linux users) are being ignored.
It is not being left behind.
But anyways, I do not wish to argue with you about that.
Whether it is illegal or not is irrelevant to this topic.
The developer wants to know WHY people pirate his games. Even though, as I already mentioned, I have not played any of his games, I do believe it might be interesting for him to hear people's opinions, since i am sure my experience could well be applied to his games instead of nintendo's games.
What constitution?
You know, the US is not the whole world.
In my country it is legal to download music and games as long as you keep it for yourself and don't make any profit off it.
I am a student that does not earn any money.
But i love video games. I play them a lot AND play a lot of them in my free time.
I have several options:
1. Do not pirate, and only get to play a few games a year.
2. Pirate, and get to play lots of them.
You see, there is no option like "3. Do not pirate and play lots of them. "
Also, it is very important to note that option 2. includes buying all the games i would have bought through option 1.
Since i do not know this developer's games, i will mention my experience with my last video game console, the Wii:
The signal-to-noise ratio for this system is crap.
I have bought Zelda, wii play, tony hawk, Guitar Hero and Mario Kart. I also have, however, pirated many other games. Why? I simply cannot afford playing every game i want to play.
Most of them, however, have only been "distractions". I would not have bought them anyway. The main reason being they are expensive and i feel most of them are not worth it.
Sadly, i also buy games that were not worth buying, and end up not buying some games i should have bought instead.
Or maybe it will compile without warnings and tell you everything is OK, and when you are already running it.. core dump!
Of course not, and that is exactly why it should be the other way around ;-)
providing the stable product, while you can still try out the BETA.
Why is it so common nowadays for linux distributions to include *BETA* software (as complex as a browser can be) in their releases?
:)
Sure, there can be some heavily tested and simple programs left as beta, but firefox? The web browser is a heavily used and substantial tool these days..
Firefox 3 Beta 5 takes my CPU usage to 100% easily, while firefox 2.x does not.
is it so hard to stick with stable, tested software ? bleeding edge is not always better.
Not to speak of KDE 4.0