"One major change, is that the icons and the UI is a lot more sophisticated and clean, making even iOS look old and clunky."
As an all-time Android user and fan, I must say the new icons look awful. Especially the phone, camera and browser icons look as if they had been taken from windows 95. I'm sorry, but existing icons are much sleeker, and those icons aren't by a LONG SHOT as polished as in iOS.
The menus do seem a bit more polished, just like in Honeycomb, but everything else I don't see why it has improved. There is even still that hideous "flash" when reaching the end of a scrollview. I have run cyanogenmod and changed the yellow to a more blueish flash and I can assure you, the color change doesn't improve things.
I just can't believe someone would go as far as saying that it makes iOS look "old and clunky". I think many things about iOS are old and clunky, but the looks certainly are not, especially when compared to current ICS leaks, which have left a very "meh" feeling in me, a long time android fan.
Thought it might come in handy; TFA only contains a few shots.
I think overall it looks better, it's great. But there is still something about the icons that needs to be improved. Maybe too colorful? The shape? It becomes more apparent when compared to an OSX desktop (or other simpler desktops, if you like that kind of style)
Well, I just signed up (yay slashvertisement!) and uploaded a very simple powerpoint slide.
Result: Running chrome I still see the slide being run on Flash. I have looked around and found no immediate way of activating the HTML5 mode, even if I can see the HTML5 presentations in the slideshare frontpage just fine.
Maybe it runs on flash only if it detects a flash plugin, but why tout the HTML5 mode this way if they are going to default to flash anyway?
Thank you. Yes, I am not talking about who should win in court. I am just talking about common sense here. I think you portrayed the situation much better than I did.
I did not intend and do not really care about who is legally right or wrong. My point is that both of them are abusing the legal system and trying to block their biggest competition that way. No laws, just common sense.
Apple is being a hypocrite for crying out loud when someone tries to pull an unfair move like this one, but do the same to others. Also, they have repeatedly claimed that others should try to invent their own stuff while copying from others in exactly the same way others have copied them.
I really hope you are not suggesting someone should not produce black devices with rounded corners just because Apple made theirs popular, and that there are other ways to do it. It's just something very trivial and basic. Yes, Samsung does things that look like Apple's products, but it's not an exact copy and other similar devices have existed before the iPad. There were also phones that happened to look similar to the iPhone before the iPhone. That design is now "trending" because of Apple and others use it too. It is absurd to claim that one holds the exclusivity to something as generic as "a grid of icons and a black bezel with rounded corners".
What if someone patented a triangular watch, made it popular, and others got sued because there are other ways to do it other than with a triangular shape?
I didn't say I think Samsung is "good" and Apple is "bad". You did not understand at all. I am saying BOTH of them are claiming absurd things. And that Apple are being hypocrites. That does not mean I think Samsung is "right". They are probably doing fraudulent stuff (IANAL).
Why do people like you always have to simplify things to Android vs iPhone? I would prefer reasonable vs unreasonable. And that might include both Samsung AND Apple on the unreasonable side.
Yes, they are. Samsung is probably being fraudulent, never said otherwise. Not arguing about any legal stuff, just common sense:
C'mon. Do you really think it is not absurd that someone gets away with the stuff Apple has been claiming from Samsung? They got the exclusivity to produce black devices with rounded corners? I really think that is just as absurd as Samsung trying to block Apple because they use standards. Both are abusing the legal system, IMHO: It's really really absurd.
...who wants to block sales of a device because it has rounded corners.
The tab ultimately got temporarily banned because of the gallery application: It is not allowed to display thumbnails, that when tapped are displayed fullscreen, where it is then possible to scroll horizontally to the next/previous.
My point is: Apple is a hypocrite. Yes, I know there is no way around RAND patents and that there IS a way around rounded corners, but it's equally absurd.
I think this is the wrong question to ask/wrong approach to take. Providing a final, production-ready product is not usually the goal of scientific research (my area). Especially when it's not done in collaboration with some engineering firm.
Usually the goal of scientific research is to provide new knowledge about some very specific domain. For example, some of my coworkers are developing a "cloud simulator" which models EC2 and allows you - among other things - to do stuff like predicting how many machines you will need and what the cost will be.
My point is that research does not have a goal to deliver production-ready software. That should not be the goal of a PhD thesis. The scientific method is about something different: Science, that is.:) I'd say it is an engineer's task to take those new advances in Science to produce something which is "working" for them.
TL;DR; So to provide my final answer in a nutshell: I would say yes, that is the exception. Science is about providing advances in knowledge that others can then use for producing better.. "stuff".
Especially in the era of cloud computing. Why does it matter? You know, even if you are not aware of it because Amazon provides you with Infrastructure as a Service, you are running virtual machines, which, wait for it: are running on real hardware:) And of course amazon has real limitations with how many machines can be fed on a single datacenter and how much this power consumption cost is.
Note that power consumption can easily be 50% of the datacenter, that for every watt spent computing there is about 2.5 as much spent in infrastructure and cooling, and that power consumption costs can easily be greater than the cost of hardware itself. (Sorry, too lazy to provide citations but you can look it up, not hard to find)
What is preventing anyone from doing just that with local compilers? I mean, its not like you can't switch from one compiler to another if one provider decides to be a douchebag and ban specific use. That will be their problem, and that's what competition is for. But I don't really see why that should be worse for 'services', at least in practice.
Agreed. I use a MBP now, but my Thinkpad before it had a clit mouse and it was AWESOME. People don't like them because they have a steep learning curve. They are also more limited as far as gestures go, but for scrolling and basic stuff its sufficient. Not having to move your palms when switching from typing to mouse is just EPIC WIN. Most folks don't realize thats a big deal because they haven't thoroughly tried both versions. I have, and I can assure you I really miss it. Better ergonomics FTW.
And Dart sounds to me like saying: people should switch to IPv6 because its much better than IPv4, only IPv4 addresses aren't running out in this case.
Wouldn't it be a huge effort to port all the javascript web to a new language? Look at whats happening with IPv6, and its a much more pressing matter...
The language can be as great as you want. It doesn't matter if it is not supported by _all_ major browsers out there. Javascript support is probably less broken than CSS support, and you can do something and expect it to work in most browsers, most of the time. It took a long time to get there. The community is starting to build up, even using the language for server-side stuff (node.js).
When introducing a new language, don't just tell me how awesome it is, tell me your long-term plan on how and why most people should be willing to support it, why they should transition to a new language and support two languages at the same time, what is going to happen to the.js web, and why devs should port existing and working stuff to a new language. Sometimes its difficult to "evolve" a single component of a huge system, which will kinda break it, instead of just replacing the whole system, which is by itself quite scary.
Of course, maybe they could use some trickery and have the language compiled to.js (in addition to having its own VM) just so legacy browsers can still load a dart app and run it as js.
But this sounds to me like saying people should switch to IPv6 because its much better than IPv4, only IPv4 addresses aren't running out in this case.
You are also deluded if you think mobile intel processors will be as powerful as a Core i7. Intel won't magically develop a new tech that will be orders of magnitude more efficient than what ARM has been doing for years. They also won't be able to magically solder an i7 to a SoC and expect it to have decent consumption levels. Point is, if ARM can't do something that is remotely close to an i7, then intel can't for the very same reason.
Many people have addressed how this must be very inefficient. Well, I think if properly designed this shouldn't be much of an overhead. It depends if you really want to have both OSs running at the same time (lots of overhead) but you probably don't want to do that, or can work around it (most process certainly won't need to be running at the same time).
Also, hardware virtualization and hypervisors that allow paravirtualization might make it pretty efficient. Xen comes to my mind.
The second link deals with kernel.org being compromised, I am talking more about a legit commit making its way to the kernel tree. i.e. What happens if Linus Torvalds get compromised and someone uses *his* repository to add malicious stuff, which will eventually get pushed upstream?
That is, what's preventing a legitimate and trusted developer from introducing malicious code? That could happen as soon as a developer is compromised, which if I'm not mistaken is exactly what happened and how kernel.org got compromised (which in turn might have exposed credentials from more devs)
Another way to look at it: the fact that the administrators found out and admitted getting hacked says a lot about the ability of the administrators.
I would rather trust these guys than someone who claims to have never been hacked ever. Its not like they get hacked all that often, which sure would make them look bad.
While the distributed nature of git sure makes it difficult for the kernel source to be compromised, I think that's a bit optimistic (I confess I only read one of those two links, though).
It looks like they argue that since every commit is hashed and everyone has got a full copy, it would be really difficult for someone to alter any single byte without raising suspicion. However, it should be noted that one or several developer accounts got compromised (which later resulted in privilege escalation to root). How do you know they did not commit something to a developer's tree, then push it upstream? That is, since they got at least one of the developers (if not many, which could complicate things further by "distributing" the harmful change over several different commits from different people) how do you know its not a *legit* commit?
The developer who got himself (or at least his passwords) compromised would need to find out that one of his commits isn't really made by him. That could be not easy to spot, especially for others if the exploit is well hidden. (off-by one bugs that result in remote exploitation come to mind - not trivial but certainly possible and difficult to detect when writing C code)
Of course, code by those developers could be audited, but I that is far from saying: "bah, we got compromised but we sure as hell know the source isn't compromised", which is how it sounds to me.
The head of Spain's RIAA has been found to have encouraged Spain to be included in the "Special 301" list, as well.
This is especially irritating, since it is that same organization who has used "Special 301" as an argument to pressure the government into modifying our laws to combat webs which offered links to warez. It is worth pointing out that those same webs have been found to be completely legal for years, since they don't actually host the copyrighted material.
It is just amazing that a country will bow and modify its laws just because it was included in a "piracy list". Especially if what they intend to change is rather ineffective and too vague. Any web which links to material without the original author's permission can be blocked, which will probably result in 1. no less piracy and 2. abuse of this new law by others.
I don't understand why they would block the webs that link and do not host the material, instead of blocking those that do host the material. Well, actually I do. It is, of course, because P2P links would be impossible to block (users would need to be blocked) without resorting to a HADOPI-style law - which they don't like because it is considered too impopular.
Yeah, so just because FRAND technology is so important they get the right to get away with it? Last time I checked, the wicked patent system existed to prevent just that. Apple could just license it and use it, but no, they want to use it for free and complain that they are getting sued when they themselves are suing for stupid patents.
I say it serves them well. If they want to play the Patents Game, the rules apply equally to all of them.
Apple reminds me to those kids that would make up their own rules on the fly just so they would not lose. Bad losers, except they are drowning in cash, which makes them just evil and hypocrites.
Slashdot Mirror
"One major change, is that the icons and the UI is a lot more sophisticated and clean, making even iOS look old and clunky."
As an all-time Android user and fan, I must say the new icons look awful. Especially the phone, camera and browser icons look as if they had been taken from windows 95. I'm sorry, but existing icons are much sleeker, and those icons aren't by a LONG SHOT as polished as in iOS.
The menus do seem a bit more polished, just like in Honeycomb, but everything else I don't see why it has improved. There is even still that hideous "flash" when reaching the end of a scrollview. I have run cyanogenmod and changed the yellow to a more blueish flash and I can assure you, the color change doesn't improve things.
I just can't believe someone would go as far as saying that it makes iOS look "old and clunky". I think many things about iOS are old and clunky, but the looks certainly are not, especially when compared to current ICS leaks, which have left a very "meh" feeling in me, a long time android fan.
Now I am going to go cry in a corner.
are you watching, Oracle?
And "pluggable" desktops, too :) That's the power of Linux!
I am/was a fan of fluxbox + gdesklets and that kind of mods. Most beautiful desktops I have ever customized :)
Quick search reveals an 8 minute overview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnxvRr-3MSA
Thought it might come in handy; TFA only contains a few shots.
I think overall it looks better, it's great. But there is still something about the icons that needs to be improved. Maybe too colorful? The shape? It becomes more apparent when compared to an OSX desktop (or other simpler desktops, if you like that kind of style)
Well, I just signed up (yay slashvertisement!) and uploaded a very simple powerpoint slide.
Result: Running chrome I still see the slide being run on Flash. I have looked around and found no immediate way of activating the HTML5 mode, even if I can see the HTML5 presentations in the slideshare frontpage just fine.
Maybe it runs on flash only if it detects a flash plugin, but why tout the HTML5 mode this way if they are going to default to flash anyway?
Thank you. Yes, I am not talking about who should win in court. I am just talking about common sense here. I think you portrayed the situation much better than I did.
Please mod parent up.
I did not intend and do not really care about who is legally right or wrong. My point is that both of them are abusing the legal system and trying to block their biggest competition that way. No laws, just common sense.
Apple is being a hypocrite for crying out loud when someone tries to pull an unfair move like this one, but do the same to others. Also, they have repeatedly claimed that others should try to invent their own stuff while copying from others in exactly the same way others have copied them.
I really hope you are not suggesting someone should not produce black devices with rounded corners just because Apple made theirs popular, and that there are other ways to do it. It's just something very trivial and basic. Yes, Samsung does things that look like Apple's products, but it's not an exact copy and other similar devices have existed before the iPad. There were also phones that happened to look similar to the iPhone before the iPhone. That design is now "trending" because of Apple and others use it too. It is absurd to claim that one holds the exclusivity to something as generic as "a grid of icons and a black bezel with rounded corners".
What if someone patented a triangular watch, made it popular, and others got sued because there are other ways to do it other than with a triangular shape?
And this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JooJoo_01.jpg
The designed was unvieled before the iPad was announced.
I didn't say I think Samsung is "good" and Apple is "bad". You did not understand at all. I am saying BOTH of them are claiming absurd things. And that Apple are being hypocrites. That does not mean I think Samsung is "right". They are probably doing fraudulent stuff (IANAL).
Why do people like you always have to simplify things to Android vs iPhone? I would prefer reasonable vs unreasonable. And that might include both Samsung AND Apple on the unreasonable side.
Yes, they are. Samsung is probably being fraudulent, never said otherwise. Not arguing about any legal stuff, just common sense:
C'mon. Do you really think it is not absurd that someone gets away with the stuff Apple has been claiming from Samsung? They got the exclusivity to produce black devices with rounded corners? I really think that is just as absurd as Samsung trying to block Apple because they use standards. Both are abusing the legal system, IMHO: It's really really absurd.
...who wants to block sales of a device because it has rounded corners.
The tab ultimately got temporarily banned because of the gallery application: It is not allowed to display thumbnails, that when tapped are displayed fullscreen, where it is then possible to scroll horizontally to the next/previous.
My point is: Apple is a hypocrite.
Yes, I know there is no way around RAND patents and that there IS a way around rounded corners, but it's equally absurd.
I think this is the wrong question to ask/wrong approach to take. Providing a final, production-ready product is not usually the goal of scientific research (my area). Especially when it's not done in collaboration with some engineering firm.
Usually the goal of scientific research is to provide new knowledge about some very specific domain. For example, some of my coworkers are developing a "cloud simulator" which models EC2 and allows you - among other things - to do stuff like predicting how many machines you will need and what the cost will be.
My point is that research does not have a goal to deliver production-ready software. That should not be the goal of a PhD thesis. The scientific method is about something different: Science, that is. :)
I'd say it is an engineer's task to take those new advances in Science to produce something which is "working" for them.
TL;DR;
So to provide my final answer in a nutshell: I would say yes, that is the exception. Science is about providing advances in knowledge that others can then use for producing better.. "stuff".
Especially in the era of cloud computing. Why does it matter? You know, even if you are not aware of it because Amazon provides you with Infrastructure as a Service, you are running virtual machines, which, wait for it: are running on real hardware :)
And of course amazon has real limitations with how many machines can be fed on a single datacenter and how much this power consumption cost is.
Note that power consumption can easily be 50% of the datacenter, that for every watt spent computing there is about 2.5 as much spent in infrastructure and cooling, and that power consumption costs can easily be greater than the cost of hardware itself. (Sorry, too lazy to provide citations but you can look it up, not hard to find)
So yeah, it does matter pretty much. :)
...call my PC my trusted companion cube.
What is preventing anyone from doing just that with local compilers? I mean, its not like you can't switch from one compiler to another if one provider decides to be a douchebag and ban specific use. That will be their problem, and that's what competition is for. But I don't really see why that should be worse for 'services', at least in practice.
Agreed. I use a MBP now, but my Thinkpad before it had a clit mouse and it was AWESOME. People don't like them because they have a steep learning curve.
They are also more limited as far as gestures go, but for scrolling and basic stuff its sufficient. Not having to move your palms when switching from typing to mouse is just EPIC WIN.
Most folks don't realize thats a big deal because they haven't thoroughly tried both versions. I have, and I can assure you I really miss it. Better ergonomics FTW.
And Dart sounds to me like saying: people should switch to IPv6 because its much better than IPv4, only IPv4 addresses aren't running out in this case.
Wouldn't it be a huge effort to port all the javascript web to a new language? Look at whats happening with IPv6, and its a much more pressing matter...
The language can be as great as you want. It doesn't matter if it is not supported by _all_ major browsers out there. Javascript support is probably less broken than CSS support, and you can do something and expect it to work in most browsers, most of the time. It took a long time to get there. The community is starting to build up, even using the language for server-side stuff (node.js).
When introducing a new language, don't just tell me how awesome it is, tell me your long-term plan on how and why most people should be willing to support it, why they should transition to a new language and support two languages at the same time, what is going to happen to the .js web, and why devs should port existing and working stuff to a new language. Sometimes its difficult to "evolve" a single component of a huge system, which will kinda break it, instead of just replacing the whole system, which is by itself quite scary.
Of course, maybe they could use some trickery and have the language compiled to .js (in addition to having its own VM) just so legacy browsers can still load a dart app and run it as js.
But this sounds to me like saying people should switch to IPv6 because its much better than IPv4, only IPv4 addresses aren't running out in this case.
You are also deluded if you think mobile intel processors will be as powerful as a Core i7. Intel won't magically develop a new tech that will be orders of magnitude more efficient than what ARM has been doing for years. They also won't be able to magically solder an i7 to a SoC and expect it to have decent consumption levels.
Point is, if ARM can't do something that is remotely close to an i7, then intel can't for the very same reason.
Your comparison is simply out of proportion.
Many people have addressed how this must be very inefficient. Well, I think if properly designed this shouldn't be much of an overhead. It depends if you really want to have both OSs running at the same time (lots of overhead) but you probably don't want to do that, or can work around it (most process certainly won't need to be running at the same time).
Also, hardware virtualization and hypervisors that allow paravirtualization might make it pretty efficient. Xen comes to my mind.
The second link deals with kernel.org being compromised, I am talking more about a legit commit making its way to the kernel tree. i.e. What happens if Linus Torvalds get compromised and someone uses *his* repository to add malicious stuff, which will eventually get pushed upstream?
That is, what's preventing a legitimate and trusted developer from introducing malicious code? That could happen as soon as a developer is compromised, which if I'm not mistaken is exactly what happened and how kernel.org got compromised (which in turn might have exposed credentials from more devs)
Another way to look at it: the fact that the administrators found out and admitted getting hacked says a lot about the ability of the administrators.
I would rather trust these guys than someone who claims to have never been hacked ever.
Its not like they get hacked all that often, which sure would make them look bad.
While the distributed nature of git sure makes it difficult for the kernel source to be compromised, I think that's a bit optimistic (I confess I only read one of those two links, though).
It looks like they argue that since every commit is hashed and everyone has got a full copy, it would be really difficult for someone to alter any single byte without raising suspicion. However, it should be noted that one or several developer accounts got compromised (which later resulted in privilege escalation to root).
How do you know they did not commit something to a developer's tree, then push it upstream? That is, since they got at least one of the developers (if not many, which could complicate things further by "distributing" the harmful change over several different commits from different people) how do you know its not a *legit* commit?
The developer who got himself (or at least his passwords) compromised would need to find out that one of his commits isn't really made by him. That could be not easy to spot, especially for others if the exploit is well hidden. (off-by one bugs that result in remote exploitation come to mind - not trivial but certainly possible and difficult to detect when writing C code)
Of course, code by those developers could be audited, but I that is far from saying: "bah, we got compromised but we sure as hell know the source isn't compromised", which is how it sounds to me.
The head of Spain's RIAA has been found to have encouraged Spain to be included in the "Special 301" list, as well.
This is especially irritating, since it is that same organization who has used "Special 301" as an argument to pressure the government into modifying our laws to combat webs which offered links to warez. It is worth pointing out that those same webs have been found to be completely legal for years, since they don't actually host the copyrighted material.
It is just amazing that a country will bow and modify its laws just because it was included in a "piracy list". Especially if what they intend to change is rather ineffective and too vague. Any web which links to material without the original author's permission can be blocked, which will probably result in 1. no less piracy and 2. abuse of this new law by others.
I don't understand why they would block the webs that link and do not host the material, instead of blocking those that do host the material.
Well, actually I do. It is, of course, because P2P links would be impossible to block (users would need to be blocked) without resorting to a HADOPI-style law - which they don't like because it is considered too impopular.
Yeah, so just because FRAND technology is so important they get the right to get away with it? Last time I checked, the wicked patent system existed to prevent just that. Apple could just license it and use it, but no, they want to use it for free and complain that they are getting sued when they themselves are suing for stupid patents.
I say it serves them well. If they want to play the Patents Game, the rules apply equally to all of them.
Apple reminds me to those kids that would make up their own rules on the fly just so they would not lose. Bad losers, except they are drowning in cash, which makes them just evil and hypocrites.