It's easy to offhandedly say who cares about the phone numbers of my friends and family. But for a sales force, keeping their contacts' information secure is one very important aspect of the job. If it is possible to create this security without requiring large lagtimes (like entering a PIN) or fault-prone hardware (fingerprint scanners), security becomes easier and safer than before for the average user.
I'd be anxious to see how well it works in the real world before trying it out, but if it is an inexpensive piece of middleware, I wouldn't be surprised if it started turning up on the high-end phones in Japan and Korea. I'd be surprised if they started showing up here in the U.S., but I'd be surprised if any sort of cutting-edge technology showed up for general consumption here.
I don't think there is another "pure" Linux vendor that has done more for making Linux a household name than RedHat. Their smart partnerships with OEMs and computer manufacturers has been invaluable to the Linux movement. In a very real sense, without RedHat, there wouldn't be a strong Linux movement now.
Bob has been behind much of this, though it is hardly something that one man can lay full claim to. Going forward, hopefully RedHat keeps it together and continues to generate Linux buzz.
I'm just joking, of course. CEOs are typically the most informed of all employees at any given company.
But this is pretty cool. The problem, of course, is how to decide whether someone is "secure" or not without running a scan on that computer. It isn't like infected computers are going to run around flagging routers of their infected status.
I wonder how they will manage this type of security clearance system. If it works, this is one of those technologies that is right on time. If we can stop viruses from infecting whole networks by shutting infections out of the network, then they can't propagate very far at all.
This MLI that Trolltech, Motorola, and WindRiver are forming looks to be another one of those biannual mailing list groups. By which I mean that there is a lot of initial interest and a bunch of people join the group and get included on the mailing list and after a month or two of email flurries, the list dies down to an automated email verifying the list recipients every two years.
These things come and go so fast that it seems to not even be worth the trouble to discuss.
On the other hand, Linux as a mobile platform is a reality, and it isn't just that handful of companies listed in the article that are involved in embedded Linux development. About half the selection of mobile phones for the Japanese Docomo network are based on Linux. Many home entertainment device makers use Linux in their home electronics products. And the number of private Linux "homebrew" projects is huge due to the relatively low cost of entry.
Linux in the "mobile" market is booming, and doesn't need an Initiative to help it. Indeed, the software aspect is only one component in the embedded market. Hardware considerations are much more important. Should OEMs go with XScale or OMAP? OMAP or Alchemy? These initial hardware decisions pave the roadmap for future software needs. Standardizing the software from the outset only limits the choices that OEMs can make.
I won't take the obvious route here and say "w00t! fr33 p1r4cY 4 411!"
This is good policy, because if the EU is to be taken seriously as a single bloc trading partner, then it must present a standardized set of laws and regulations so that it isn't just a loosely bound bunch of states. By unifying the law under a single EU regulating entity, they effectively present themselves as one country.
While this may hurt certain groups within the borders of the EU, the EU was never supposed to be about individual states or particular companies. It was meant to unify Europe into a large trading bloc that would rival the U.S. in trading and negotiating power.
I thought it was going to be weird with the entire script sung, but it was actually really interesting and the ways in which the tempo of the songs could be used to increase dramatic tension or emphasize humor was very cool.
Hopefully this interpretation of the Princess Bride does justice to the movie which did justice to the book.
With regard to the P=NP problem (algorithms) and the cryptography problem (number theory), I still stand behind my previous statement that if researching these things interests you, then you would be better served by studying CS as a discipline of mathematics.
But on the whole, you are right. There are plenty of areas that still need study, however things like improvements in chip architectures and managed code optimizers will be discovered by the people with their hands in the guts of it, not those in the ivory tower (though there may be overlap between these groups).
In an attempt to steer this back to what I was originally saying, it wasn't the nitty gritty details of the JVM that made it what it is (no, I don't mean a hulking mass of slop), but rather it was the fact that someone was sitting in their office at Sun and mused about having the ability to run the same binary code on any architecture. It is the idea that makes a thing great. Sometimes good ideas come out of academia, but most of the time it is the people who are actively involved and especially interested in their area of expertise that move the state of the art forward. This isn't saying that they make substantive additions to the fundamental precepts of the art, only that their use and implementation of existing concepts is what drives the technology forward. (The key distinction I am making here is between "science" and "technology", the latter being an implementation of the former.)
Your Newton reference is very apt, and I may have been a little quick to declare the end of CS. However while I don't really think that CS itself will stop growing, I don't think that it is as important to engineers in the field as a good creative background would be, nor to those wishing to study it as a pure science as a good mathematics-based curriculum would be.
I think it is important that you really nail down what you mean be "breakthroughs in computing". In fact, I do not see anywhere where I used that term. You must have pulled it out of thin air, because I didn't say anything about laymen coming up with any sort of computing breakthrough. I will be the first to admit that there is an extrordinarily high probability that someone doing active research in any topic will discover a field-specific breakthrough before a layman.
But none of this gets to the point of my original post which is that CS is a relatively limited subset of mathematics and should be treated as such rather than separated out into a wholly different field.
First off, I think you are spot on about this. However, you are looking at it from a different angle than I am.
The foundations are set and, as you say, unless someone comes up with a completely new type of computational structure, those foundations are relatively easily grasped. Why, then, is it necessary that students wishing to go into the computer fields should have a full CS curriculum? These fundamental concepts are teachable in a single semester. The rest of the curriculum ought to be focused on how to put these things together into usable structures (programs), but that isn't CS, it is CE.
CS, the solving of problems like finding elegant solutions to very thorny problems (P=NP, etc), is a branch of mathematics, and I fully agree that as a discipline within mathematics it ought to be kept around as a branch curriculum. However, on its own it lacks the rigor that a pure math curriculum can provide.
So I think that studying CS as a scientific discipline in isolation is pretty useless. You can only get so far until you reach the limits of the conceptual framework. And studying CS as a means to learn computer programming leaves you with far too much conceptual baggage to be able to think "outside the box". There will of course be those who have both a firm grasp of the theory and a great idea and the means to implement it. These people will inevitably come up with the Next Big Thing, but it won't be a breakthrough in Computer Science that brought it forward but a new way of looking at an existing problem. That requires an understanding of real-world problems, not the purity of Computer Science.
What is left to study in Computer Science? What algorithms are still out there waiting to be uncovered?
In just a short 100 years since people really started thinking seriously about computation, the whole science has progressed to the point that it is a well-understood field (well, maybe not to freshmen). These days, it is more a matter of rehashing and recombining already existing theories and algorithms to come up with interesting implementations. However, the implementations are of non-computer science related ideas rather than pure CS.
We know the best ways to implement loops, data structures, sorting algorithms, searching algorithms, and optimizations. So what we do is just find new ways of putting these together to solve our computing problems. But that isn't science, that's engineering. It's technology.
CS as a field of study is a dead end, unfortunately. The real progress to be seen in the future is not in the science of algorithms, but in the application of the existing corpus to our needs. This requires dreamers, not people who know the nuts and bolts.
So Bill Gates is wrong. CS is not a necessary field. It is necessary to understand the concepts behind CS, but as a strict field of study, it is very lacking. For those who want pure theory, Math is a better field of study. And for those that want to do something with computers, CE or EE is a better way to go.
Part of the social contract is that you are obliged to give back to the society in which you prosper some portion of your prosperity. In a successful, prosperous society such as ours, it would be morally questionable to not let those who either are unable due to circumstance or who have been disenfranchised through various means to have access to the freedoms and services that the government guarantees. The degree to which you succeed determines the degree to which you are obligated to help your fellow citizen.
The only means of fair apportionment of such obligations is through government taxes. That you already pay your taxes as a good citizen proves that you believe that it is your duty as a citizen to do so, despite griping about how much it may hurt your pocketbook. You have, by your acceptance of the social contract, already admitted that your earnings are not yours, that you do not have a fundamental right to your earnings.
A society is judged first and foremost on the amount of freedom it grants (inasmuch as such freedoms are "granted") to its citizens, but closely following that is how it treats its most disadvantaged citizens.
Really? It doesn't mean being open minded, in search of better ways to solve problems, and desperately fighting tooth and nail to stop the on-going erosion of rights waged by the government?
If I am in favor of equal rights for all, how can I not be in favor of also extending help to those who otherwise wouldn't have the ability to enjoy those rights?
I don't find that a necessary dichotomy to reconcile.
Corrupt politicians are only the ones you don't agree with. I am more afraid of politicians who would usurp fundamental rights than those that would enact provisions for special interests.
I am about as liberal as you can get. I think that the role of the government should be expanded such that it provides a very large safety net for the disadvantaged, and I think that many services that we now pay for ought to be subsidized such that those services (medical, roads, etc) are free/affordable for at least the most disadvantaged and ideally for the whole citizenry.
But I am absolutely against recent "liberal" attempts to stifle Free Speech by restricting campaign contributions. I think it is paramount to a repeal of the First Amendment to say that you cannot use your money in the way that you see fit. If a person wishes to give speeches on the corner in support of his candidate, it is wrong to take away his right to do so. If a person uses his own money to buy a soap box and megaphone to do it more effectively, it is wrong to take away his right to spend that money. If a person gives money to his candidate in order that the candidate can furnish other supporters with soap boxes and megaphones, is it right to take that right away? Where do we draw the line? Why do we draw the line?
It is not anyone's business but the IRS how I spend my money, in my opinion. If I want to blow a million dollars on TV ads for my favored candidate, the government ought not have the right to stop me anymore than they have the right to stop me from buying lollipops for the sick kids in the hospital.
How the "liberals" got caught up in this illiberal crusade is beyond me. It smacks more of anti-Republicanism than anything else. By restricting the campaign contributions of the rich, they effectively limit the amount the Republicans can take in from their supporters. That that crackpot McCain and the worthless Feingold were the people bringing the originally passing bill to the floor is no big surprise, but that we have widespread support of the erosion of our most cherished First Amendment rights among the people sworn to protect and defend our Constitution is abominable.
Good for this current bill. Let's bring back Free Speech to the citizenry.
I have a tablet that I can pick up any time and just start writing or drawing or doodling. It costs less than a dollar. And it doesn't require my computer to be on. But that's besides the point.
If you really think that you need a computer to surf the web, or need a PC to use a tablet, or ought to be locked down to a single site in order to use a phone, you are either part of the problem or are significantly behind the times.
The goal should not be to require this 300W heating unit to be the focal point of your computing needs. As I said earlier, I don't want to be tied to this box. I don't want to have to wait 5 minutes for XP to boot up just so I can make calls; I want to pick up the phone and dial.
The PC as a computing device is a lot like the horseshoe crab. It's been around forever, it'll be around forever, but it's way past its evolutionary prime. The problem is that people think "Computing == PC", so they don't see the possibilities of breaking away from that dead-end paradigm.
It's a dead end because it relies on being stationary. Even laptops require that you be stationary for limited amounts of time. Palmtop devices go a long way to removing that restriction, and cellular phones do the same. These small devices pack a lot of computing power into very small, low-power units that you can take with you anywhere. This is the new paradigm.
I hate them for trying to do all the things that other things already do better.
I hate Windows Media Center.
I hate things that require my computer be on to work.
I want a cordless VoIP handset that doesn't need a computer. Ideally, I'd like to have a wireless VoIP handset that doesn't need a localized base station (something along the lines of cellular, but with free long distance).
I don't want to sit in front of my computer when I use the phone. I don't want to sit in front of my computer when I want to watch TV. I don't want my computer to be on.
The computer is a great tool for what it does, but the dominant paradigm seems to be to build more functionality into this heavy hunk of metal rather than build up the functionality of smaller, better-suited devices.
There isn't much money to be made in instant messengers. Maybe a little revenue from advertising in the window corners, maybe a few bucks from premium games, but in all it's mostly a net loss. And you also have the problem that your users may be drawn away from your IM client to another one because of an established group of friends with the other one.
Bringing these two IM clients into compatibility isn't a way to make a stronger IM network, but rather to eliminate the drain that both companies must be feeling. It also helps that it marginalizes AIM and its premium services, which benefits both Yahoo and Microsoft.
I always thought Microsoft would get around to doing this one day. It just seemed the logical next step. Hopefully their next next step will be the ability to have different statuses for specific people in your contact list, and be able to contact people even though you appear offline. Back in the day (get off my lawn, you crazy kids) ICQ had this feature, but since ICQ has been dragged down into a hole by AOL, it's been on my IM wishlist.
While this is amazing proof of life on Earth, unfortunately it is not proof of life on Mars.
These Earth-borne creatures are red because of the propensity of life on Earth to use iron as a key component in blood. I would expect that Martian creatures would have copper coursing through their veins.
How will they handle overseas distribution? How will they handle inter-state taxes?
They say they will be online by the end of the year, but that is less than 3 months away. There are so many problems with actually distributing original content online that I highly doubt any movie company will be able to successfully make the jump.
I'd love to be proved wrong, but then again, I'd love to have a 60 inch monitor. I don't see either one happening in the next 3 months.
Most common malware can be stopped with the same virus-avoidance techniques listed in this brief document.
As for this initiative, it's not explained very well, that's for sure. It seems like a simple naming convention for viruses as well as a central location for all virus information. I'm not big on the government taking away such a role from private industry, but with the threat of viruses affecting everyone, it makes sense that the government provide a baseline starting point for all antivirus companies to start from. It is not in the best interest of the public to have a single private company hoard virus information.
Maybe the files themselves are hosted on a P2P network and the BBC saves on bandwidth costs by offloading the files onto that network. But it doesn't seem very "P2Pish".
Slashdot Mirror
Were you just joking, or did you get a chance to see this little animated GIF demo:
http://www.oki.com/jp/FSC/vc/en/
Wouldn't it be nice if phones were so cheap that after a year or two of use you wouldn't mind tossing and picking up a new one for a few dollars?
It's easy to offhandedly say who cares about the phone numbers of my friends and family. But for a sales force, keeping their contacts' information secure is one very important aspect of the job. If it is possible to create this security without requiring large lagtimes (like entering a PIN) or fault-prone hardware (fingerprint scanners), security becomes easier and safer than before for the average user.
I'd be anxious to see how well it works in the real world before trying it out, but if it is an inexpensive piece of middleware, I wouldn't be surprised if it started turning up on the high-end phones in Japan and Korea. I'd be surprised if they started showing up here in the U.S., but I'd be surprised if any sort of cutting-edge technology showed up for general consumption here.
I wish they had a demo.
I don't think there is another "pure" Linux vendor that has done more for making Linux a household name than RedHat. Their smart partnerships with OEMs and computer manufacturers has been invaluable to the Linux movement. In a very real sense, without RedHat, there wouldn't be a strong Linux movement now.
Bob has been behind much of this, though it is hardly something that one man can lay full claim to. Going forward, hopefully RedHat keeps it together and continues to generate Linux buzz.
I'm just joking, of course. CEOs are typically the most informed of all employees at any given company.
But this is pretty cool. The problem, of course, is how to decide whether someone is "secure" or not without running a scan on that computer. It isn't like infected computers are going to run around flagging routers of their infected status.
I wonder how they will manage this type of security clearance system. If it works, this is one of those technologies that is right on time. If we can stop viruses from infecting whole networks by shutting infections out of the network, then they can't propagate very far at all.
This MLI that Trolltech, Motorola, and WindRiver are forming looks to be another one of those biannual mailing list groups. By which I mean that there is a lot of initial interest and a bunch of people join the group and get included on the mailing list and after a month or two of email flurries, the list dies down to an automated email verifying the list recipients every two years.
These things come and go so fast that it seems to not even be worth the trouble to discuss.
On the other hand, Linux as a mobile platform is a reality, and it isn't just that handful of companies listed in the article that are involved in embedded Linux development. About half the selection of mobile phones for the Japanese Docomo network are based on Linux. Many home entertainment device makers use Linux in their home electronics products. And the number of private Linux "homebrew" projects is huge due to the relatively low cost of entry.
Linux in the "mobile" market is booming, and doesn't need an Initiative to help it. Indeed, the software aspect is only one component in the embedded market. Hardware considerations are much more important. Should OEMs go with XScale or OMAP? OMAP or Alchemy? These initial hardware decisions pave the roadmap for future software needs. Standardizing the software from the outset only limits the choices that OEMs can make.
I won't take the obvious route here and say "w00t! fr33 p1r4cY 4 411!"
This is good policy, because if the EU is to be taken seriously as a single bloc trading partner, then it must present a standardized set of laws and regulations so that it isn't just a loosely bound bunch of states. By unifying the law under a single EU regulating entity, they effectively present themselves as one country.
While this may hurt certain groups within the borders of the EU, the EU was never supposed to be about individual states or particular companies. It was meant to unify Europe into a large trading bloc that would rival the U.S. in trading and negotiating power.
This is exactly what the EU should be doing.
I thought it was going to be weird with the entire script sung, but it was actually really interesting and the ways in which the tempo of the songs could be used to increase dramatic tension or emphasize humor was very cool.
Hopefully this interpretation of the Princess Bride does justice to the movie which did justice to the book.
Excellent response. Thanks.
With regard to the P=NP problem (algorithms) and the cryptography problem (number theory), I still stand behind my previous statement that if researching these things interests you, then you would be better served by studying CS as a discipline of mathematics.
But on the whole, you are right. There are plenty of areas that still need study, however things like improvements in chip architectures and managed code optimizers will be discovered by the people with their hands in the guts of it, not those in the ivory tower (though there may be overlap between these groups).
In an attempt to steer this back to what I was originally saying, it wasn't the nitty gritty details of the JVM that made it what it is (no, I don't mean a hulking mass of slop), but rather it was the fact that someone was sitting in their office at Sun and mused about having the ability to run the same binary code on any architecture. It is the idea that makes a thing great. Sometimes good ideas come out of academia, but most of the time it is the people who are actively involved and especially interested in their area of expertise that move the state of the art forward. This isn't saying that they make substantive additions to the fundamental precepts of the art, only that their use and implementation of existing concepts is what drives the technology forward. (The key distinction I am making here is between "science" and "technology", the latter being an implementation of the former.)
Your Newton reference is very apt, and I may have been a little quick to declare the end of CS. However while I don't really think that CS itself will stop growing, I don't think that it is as important to engineers in the field as a good creative background would be, nor to those wishing to study it as a pure science as a good mathematics-based curriculum would be.
I think it is important that you really nail down what you mean be "breakthroughs in computing". In fact, I do not see anywhere where I used that term. You must have pulled it out of thin air, because I didn't say anything about laymen coming up with any sort of computing breakthrough. I will be the first to admit that there is an extrordinarily high probability that someone doing active research in any topic will discover a field-specific breakthrough before a layman.
But none of this gets to the point of my original post which is that CS is a relatively limited subset of mathematics and should be treated as such rather than separated out into a wholly different field.
First off, I think you are spot on about this. However, you are looking at it from a different angle than I am.
The foundations are set and, as you say, unless someone comes up with a completely new type of computational structure, those foundations are relatively easily grasped. Why, then, is it necessary that students wishing to go into the computer fields should have a full CS curriculum? These fundamental concepts are teachable in a single semester. The rest of the curriculum ought to be focused on how to put these things together into usable structures (programs), but that isn't CS, it is CE.
CS, the solving of problems like finding elegant solutions to very thorny problems (P=NP, etc), is a branch of mathematics, and I fully agree that as a discipline within mathematics it ought to be kept around as a branch curriculum. However, on its own it lacks the rigor that a pure math curriculum can provide.
So I think that studying CS as a scientific discipline in isolation is pretty useless. You can only get so far until you reach the limits of the conceptual framework. And studying CS as a means to learn computer programming leaves you with far too much conceptual baggage to be able to think "outside the box". There will of course be those who have both a firm grasp of the theory and a great idea and the means to implement it. These people will inevitably come up with the Next Big Thing, but it won't be a breakthrough in Computer Science that brought it forward but a new way of looking at an existing problem. That requires an understanding of real-world problems, not the purity of Computer Science.
What is left to study in Computer Science? What algorithms are still out there waiting to be uncovered?
In just a short 100 years since people really started thinking seriously about computation, the whole science has progressed to the point that it is a well-understood field (well, maybe not to freshmen). These days, it is more a matter of rehashing and recombining already existing theories and algorithms to come up with interesting implementations. However, the implementations are of non-computer science related ideas rather than pure CS.
We know the best ways to implement loops, data structures, sorting algorithms, searching algorithms, and optimizations. So what we do is just find new ways of putting these together to solve our computing problems. But that isn't science, that's engineering. It's technology.
CS as a field of study is a dead end, unfortunately. The real progress to be seen in the future is not in the science of algorithms, but in the application of the existing corpus to our needs. This requires dreamers, not people who know the nuts and bolts.
So Bill Gates is wrong. CS is not a necessary field. It is necessary to understand the concepts behind CS, but as a strict field of study, it is very lacking. For those who want pure theory, Math is a better field of study. And for those that want to do something with computers, CE or EE is a better way to go.
Part of the social contract is that you are obliged to give back to the society in which you prosper some portion of your prosperity. In a successful, prosperous society such as ours, it would be morally questionable to not let those who either are unable due to circumstance or who have been disenfranchised through various means to have access to the freedoms and services that the government guarantees. The degree to which you succeed determines the degree to which you are obligated to help your fellow citizen.
The only means of fair apportionment of such obligations is through government taxes. That you already pay your taxes as a good citizen proves that you believe that it is your duty as a citizen to do so, despite griping about how much it may hurt your pocketbook. You have, by your acceptance of the social contract, already admitted that your earnings are not yours, that you do not have a fundamental right to your earnings.
A society is judged first and foremost on the amount of freedom it grants (inasmuch as such freedoms are "granted") to its citizens, but closely following that is how it treats its most disadvantaged citizens.
Really? It doesn't mean being open minded, in search of better ways to solve problems, and desperately fighting tooth and nail to stop the on-going erosion of rights waged by the government?
If I am in favor of equal rights for all, how can I not be in favor of also extending help to those who otherwise wouldn't have the ability to enjoy those rights?
I think you misunderstand what makes a Liberal.
I think it is of paramount importance that I point out that the word you wanted there is "tantamount"
Close enough for government work.
I don't find that a necessary dichotomy to reconcile.
Corrupt politicians are only the ones you don't agree with. I am more afraid of politicians who would usurp fundamental rights than those that would enact provisions for special interests.
I am about as liberal as you can get. I think that the role of the government should be expanded such that it provides a very large safety net for the disadvantaged, and I think that many services that we now pay for ought to be subsidized such that those services (medical, roads, etc) are free/affordable for at least the most disadvantaged and ideally for the whole citizenry.
But I am absolutely against recent "liberal" attempts to stifle Free Speech by restricting campaign contributions. I think it is paramount to a repeal of the First Amendment to say that you cannot use your money in the way that you see fit. If a person wishes to give speeches on the corner in support of his candidate, it is wrong to take away his right to do so. If a person uses his own money to buy a soap box and megaphone to do it more effectively, it is wrong to take away his right to spend that money. If a person gives money to his candidate in order that the candidate can furnish other supporters with soap boxes and megaphones, is it right to take that right away? Where do we draw the line? Why do we draw the line?
It is not anyone's business but the IRS how I spend my money, in my opinion. If I want to blow a million dollars on TV ads for my favored candidate, the government ought not have the right to stop me anymore than they have the right to stop me from buying lollipops for the sick kids in the hospital.
How the "liberals" got caught up in this illiberal crusade is beyond me. It smacks more of anti-Republicanism than anything else. By restricting the campaign contributions of the rich, they effectively limit the amount the Republicans can take in from their supporters. That that crackpot McCain and the worthless Feingold were the people bringing the originally passing bill to the floor is no big surprise, but that we have widespread support of the erosion of our most cherished First Amendment rights among the people sworn to protect and defend our Constitution is abominable.
Good for this current bill. Let's bring back Free Speech to the citizenry.
I have a tablet that I can pick up any time and just start writing or drawing or doodling. It costs less than a dollar. And it doesn't require my computer to be on. But that's besides the point.
If you really think that you need a computer to surf the web, or need a PC to use a tablet, or ought to be locked down to a single site in order to use a phone, you are either part of the problem or are significantly behind the times.
The goal should not be to require this 300W heating unit to be the focal point of your computing needs. As I said earlier, I don't want to be tied to this box. I don't want to have to wait 5 minutes for XP to boot up just so I can make calls; I want to pick up the phone and dial.
The PC as a computing device is a lot like the horseshoe crab. It's been around forever, it'll be around forever, but it's way past its evolutionary prime. The problem is that people think "Computing == PC", so they don't see the possibilities of breaking away from that dead-end paradigm.
It's a dead end because it relies on being stationary. Even laptops require that you be stationary for limited amounts of time. Palmtop devices go a long way to removing that restriction, and cellular phones do the same. These small devices pack a lot of computing power into very small, low-power units that you can take with you anywhere. This is the new paradigm.
I hate them for trying to do all the things that other things already do better.
I hate Windows Media Center.
I hate things that require my computer be on to work.
I want a cordless VoIP handset that doesn't need a computer. Ideally, I'd like to have a wireless VoIP handset that doesn't need a localized base station (something along the lines of cellular, but with free long distance).
I don't want to sit in front of my computer when I use the phone. I don't want to sit in front of my computer when I want to watch TV. I don't want my computer to be on.
The computer is a great tool for what it does, but the dominant paradigm seems to be to build more functionality into this heavy hunk of metal rather than build up the functionality of smaller, better-suited devices.
There isn't much money to be made in instant messengers. Maybe a little revenue from advertising in the window corners, maybe a few bucks from premium games, but in all it's mostly a net loss. And you also have the problem that your users may be drawn away from your IM client to another one because of an established group of friends with the other one.
Bringing these two IM clients into compatibility isn't a way to make a stronger IM network, but rather to eliminate the drain that both companies must be feeling. It also helps that it marginalizes AIM and its premium services, which benefits both Yahoo and Microsoft.
I always thought Microsoft would get around to doing this one day. It just seemed the logical next step. Hopefully their next next step will be the ability to have different statuses for specific people in your contact list, and be able to contact people even though you appear offline. Back in the day (get off my lawn, you crazy kids) ICQ had this feature, but since ICQ has been dragged down into a hole by AOL, it's been on my IM wishlist.
After all, it is just Linux, so it should be covered by the GPL. Any "club members" who want to can upload a torrent.
Or is there some aspects of the system that aren't GPL and can't be uploaded?
While this is amazing proof of life on Earth, unfortunately it is not proof of life on Mars.
These Earth-borne creatures are red because of the propensity of life on Earth to use iron as a key component in blood. I would expect that Martian creatures would have copper coursing through their veins.
How will they handle overseas distribution? How will they handle inter-state taxes?
They say they will be online by the end of the year, but that is less than 3 months away. There are so many problems with actually distributing original content online that I highly doubt any movie company will be able to successfully make the jump.
I'd love to be proved wrong, but then again, I'd love to have a 60 inch monitor. I don't see either one happening in the next 3 months.
This is the first time I've been to the US-CERT website, so please forgive my enthusiasm.
This document on viruses should be required reading for anyone who uses a computer.
http://www.us-cert.gov/reading_room/virus.html
Most common malware can be stopped with the same virus-avoidance techniques listed in this brief document.
As for this initiative, it's not explained very well, that's for sure. It seems like a simple naming convention for viruses as well as a central location for all virus information. I'm not big on the government taking away such a role from private industry, but with the threat of viruses affecting everyone, it makes sense that the government provide a baseline starting point for all antivirus companies to start from. It is not in the best interest of the public to have a single private company hoard virus information.
Take a look at this page which details how to download the files:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/imp/tour/tour7.shtml
Maybe the files themselves are hosted on a P2P network and the BBC saves on bandwidth costs by offloading the files onto that network. But it doesn't seem very "P2Pish".