Your phone is a sample size of one, compared to countless iPhones. It would be more meaningful to compare the average breakage rate of all Galaxy S2s sold vs its contemporary iPhone model's breakage rate.
I not-uncommonly print event tickets, shipping labels and recipes from my phone and tablet (my phone or tablet display recipes fine, but I'll invariably spill something on them if I have them near me while cooking so I prefer something disposable). While I could always fire up the desktop, my smartphone is usually right at my fingertips. While it's not a very frequent use, mobile device printing is convenient enough that I appreciate having the feature.
What's the benefit of baking all these apps into the system partition? I've found that even after an OTA update, most have been replaced by newer versions in the data partition within a few weeks. Why not just provide the barest core apps and default to asking to download the rest? I vaguely remember Froyo or Gingerbread doing something similar.
Didn't this same idea already fail in the 90s? I recall Aerosmith's 9 Lives came with some goofy "interactive" exhibit in the remaining space on the disc. This just sounds like a downloadable version of the same thing.
We have an incomplete description of this bronze plan. To qualify as an exchange-eligible plan, there will be a yearly out of pocket maximum after which insurance pays 100%. It's probably in the vicinity of $8k or so. It also must cover defined "preventative care" items 100% and those items are not subject to the deductible. The idea here is to get people to go to their doctors regularly in the hopes of catching issues early when they are the least expensive to treat. It's also intended to keep people who do have serious issues from being bankrupted by $100k and up medical bills.
I don't know what the next killer app I'll want connected to my TV will be (Redbox? HBO, Showtime, Cinemax bypassing the cable companies? Some yet-to-be founded Internet channel?) but I'm willing to bet whatever it is will never get added to the Smart-TVs being sold today. Services change too fast. I'd rather replace a less expensive streaming device than a whole damn TV.
There are other good CEOs out there. Apple's board just happened to pick a few terrible ones. Tim Cook's been running the show for a while now, as Steve's health declined. So far, things look good for Apple's continued success.
Because congress forbids it. NASA has little control over its own budget. It probably would've cost less and worked out better if they could have manufactured a few dozen identical Spirit/Opportunity rovers with a few changes to the instrument packages and drop them all in different spots around the Martian globe. But congress authorized only two. Subsequent rovers get carved up in committee. Congressman A will vote for it, but only if a favored software company in their district gets to write the control software, Congresswoman B will vote for it, but only if the solar panels are manufactured in her district, etc.
The end result is NASA only winds up being an efficient means for the distribution of pork to various congresscritter's preferred contractors, and can seldom reuse designs.
Launch costs are the killer right now. Com sats and government funded programs are the only things that can afford to get there right now. If SpaceX and others like it really manage to cut launch costs down to $1,000/lb, it opens the doors for a LOT of interesting uses that never would've been funded at today's costs to orbit.
Rather than compressing the hydrogen, you can convert it to liquid hydrocarbons via Fisher-Tropsch and use our existing infrastructure to ship that around (and ultimately burn it where you need it). You lose efficiency in the conversion, but it really all boils down to what's economically viable.
That's quite a lot for a single individual to amass in a (presumably) short period of time between buying and returning a computer. I think they perhaps mean 10 gigs in personal files alltogether. If the previous user imported their music library, photo albums, video*cough*porn*cough*, then that's easy enough. Documents alone would be surprising, tho.
While it does that, it should make Windows 8 the first release that breaks with the past by moving all legacy technologies into a sandbox a la what OS X originally did.
Doing so would likely break many of the duct-tape and hot-glue bodge-jobs holding together a slew of mission-critical legacy applications. For example, I've worked at four very big financial institutions and interacted on a daily basis with various systems of a dozen others. And I've noticed something they all have in common. Their "legacy" systems were built decades ago and connected to via an assortment of terminal emulators such as Attachmate, Hummingbird, and others I only dimly remember by their gaudy splash-screens. In fact, the workstation image contains several different terminal emulators as some systems only work properly with a specific version or brand. Some even have funny little wrapper-programs that run on top of these terminal emulators.
And then there are some other applications developed in-house or by a hired third party that present a whole new interface, connect to different databases, yet still interact with the terminal emulators in unclear and often bizarre ways.
And what web-apps there are only work properly in IE6. Maybe IE7 if they're lucky.
And then there are the Excel macros . . .
How would you sandbox these applications without breaking all the tenuous and shoddy linkages that hold the whole house of cards together?
It's easy to say "screw 'em, shoulda coded right in the first place" but a major financial institution isn't going to roll out a new operating system that forces them to redevelop large swaths of their legacy application base without a damn good reason. These same banks have been "working on" migrating away from legacy apps for the better part of two decades and all they have to show for it are a couple of web apps and thin graphical veneers shoving commands through a terminal emulator and ridiculous piles of shockingly retarded Excel macros. They'd just as soon stick with what they have.
You lose power steering and anti-lock brakes, which can still make things considerably more dangerous and control of the car more difficult. But that's not really the main issue. The main issue is it's a silly analogy.
And that's a key difference between science and faith. To steal a little from Steven, scientists shouldn't "believe the same thing on Wednesday that they believed on Monday, regardless of what happened on Tuesday." That's not how science works.
If a researcher discovers something surprising, the next steps are confirming their results and measurements were accurate and are repeatable. Then experiments can be devised to test why this might be so.
Nobody should do much believing in science. String Theory, Dark Matter and Dark Energy aren't things to be believed. They're just potential and incomplete explanations for what might be going on. The next step is trying to devise experiments to detect these things and/or test the implications.
Between Apple, Google, RIM & HP/Palm all using WebKit, it looks poised to become the dominant mobile browser engine. If that happens, I think MS may swallow their pride and follow suit. Why keep spending money on their own engine just to play catch-up? It could be a wise business decision in the near future.
I never thought so. I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a glass of mineral water and a glass of distilled in a blind taste test. If you're curious, go buy a jug at your local supermarket. They're only $0.79 / gallon (sometimes less) around here.
While they're not manufactured in the USA, EU, or Japan; another "not Chinese" company is HTC--maker of many widely available Android and WinMo phones. Their headquarters and manufacturing facilities are in Taiwan.
Not much, really. P != NP was the widely expected answer, it was just an unproven assumption. The fields that are affected have been proceeding as if P != NP was correct.
Internals are a bit disappointing. Why are they only putting a 624Mhz processor in their new flagship device? HTC, Apple, Moto & Samsung are all using 1ghz ARM variants in their flagship phones--with higher speeds and dual core phones on the near horizon.
I'm a total Android fanboy, mind you, but I'd like to see one or two of the "late comers" actually make a splash. Symbian and Palm are basically dead, HP might revive WebOS, but I doubt they'll pull it off. However, we still have WP7, BB6 and MeeGo on the horizon. Competition is good. I'm hoping history doesn't repeat itself like it did in the PC wars and we end up with a duopoly again. I think it's still early enough in the game that new entrants can still get a good share of business. Not to mention, people are much more fickle with their phones than their computers. During the PC wars, computers were serious investments that people expected to last several years. Phones are much more "disposable" and people replace them every year or two with something new and shiny. Hopefully that's enough to keep the market competitive and innovative.
Even if the tech gets to a point where Joe-Bob can buy a 5,000 watt solar array at Wal-Mart for $999, he won't be able to install it permanently in a safe manner, because you're still dealing with 5,000 watts. It becomes nothing more than a fuel-less generator. Mounting it permanently on his roof, tying it in to his household wiring and setting up a grid-tie net-metering arrangement will still take the work of professionals.
Of course, we may someday get to a point where the process is simplified and routine enough that installation costs might approach something like putting in a tankless water heater, gas lines or satellite dish.
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Your phone is a sample size of one, compared to countless iPhones. It would be more meaningful to compare the average breakage rate of all Galaxy S2s sold vs its contemporary iPhone model's breakage rate.
I not-uncommonly print event tickets, shipping labels and recipes from my phone and tablet (my phone or tablet display recipes fine, but I'll invariably spill something on them if I have them near me while cooking so I prefer something disposable). While I could always fire up the desktop, my smartphone is usually right at my fingertips. While it's not a very frequent use, mobile device printing is convenient enough that I appreciate having the feature.
They can't be deleted (without rooting) so that they still get restored along with the rest of the system when doing a factory reset.
What's the benefit of baking all these apps into the system partition? I've found that even after an OTA update, most have been replaced by newer versions in the data partition within a few weeks. Why not just provide the barest core apps and default to asking to download the rest? I vaguely remember Froyo or Gingerbread doing something similar.
Didn't this same idea already fail in the 90s? I recall Aerosmith's 9 Lives came with some goofy "interactive" exhibit in the remaining space on the disc. This just sounds like a downloadable version of the same thing.
^Per IRS rules, the highest permitted out-of-pocket maximum for eligible plans is $6,350 for 2014 for individual plans and $12,700 for family plans.
We have an incomplete description of this bronze plan. To qualify as an exchange-eligible plan, there will be a yearly out of pocket maximum after which insurance pays 100%. It's probably in the vicinity of $8k or so. It also must cover defined "preventative care" items 100% and those items are not subject to the deductible. The idea here is to get people to go to their doctors regularly in the hopes of catching issues early when they are the least expensive to treat. It's also intended to keep people who do have serious issues from being bankrupted by $100k and up medical bills.
I don't know what the next killer app I'll want connected to my TV will be (Redbox? HBO, Showtime, Cinemax bypassing the cable companies? Some yet-to-be founded Internet channel?) but I'm willing to bet whatever it is will never get added to the Smart-TVs being sold today. Services change too fast. I'd rather replace a less expensive streaming device than a whole damn TV.
There are other good CEOs out there. Apple's board just happened to pick a few terrible ones. Tim Cook's been running the show for a while now, as Steve's health declined. So far, things look good for Apple's continued success.
Because congress forbids it. NASA has little control over its own budget. It probably would've cost less and worked out better if they could have manufactured a few dozen identical Spirit/Opportunity rovers with a few changes to the instrument packages and drop them all in different spots around the Martian globe. But congress authorized only two. Subsequent rovers get carved up in committee. Congressman A will vote for it, but only if a favored software company in their district gets to write the control software, Congresswoman B will vote for it, but only if the solar panels are manufactured in her district, etc. The end result is NASA only winds up being an efficient means for the distribution of pork to various congresscritter's preferred contractors, and can seldom reuse designs.
Launch costs are the killer right now. Com sats and government funded programs are the only things that can afford to get there right now. If SpaceX and others like it really manage to cut launch costs down to $1,000/lb, it opens the doors for a LOT of interesting uses that never would've been funded at today's costs to orbit.
Rather than compressing the hydrogen, you can convert it to liquid hydrocarbons via Fisher-Tropsch and use our existing infrastructure to ship that around (and ultimately burn it where you need it). You lose efficiency in the conversion, but it really all boils down to what's economically viable.
That's quite a lot for a single individual to amass in a (presumably) short period of time between buying and returning a computer. I think they perhaps mean 10 gigs in personal files alltogether. If the previous user imported their music library, photo albums, video*cough*porn*cough*, then that's easy enough. Documents alone would be surprising, tho.
Doing so would likely break many of the duct-tape and hot-glue bodge-jobs holding together a slew of mission-critical legacy applications. For example, I've worked at four very big financial institutions and interacted on a daily basis with various systems of a dozen others. And I've noticed something they all have in common. Their "legacy" systems were built decades ago and connected to via an assortment of terminal emulators such as Attachmate, Hummingbird, and others I only dimly remember by their gaudy splash-screens. In fact, the workstation image contains several different terminal emulators as some systems only work properly with a specific version or brand. Some even have funny little wrapper-programs that run on top of these terminal emulators.
And then there are some other applications developed in-house or by a hired third party that present a whole new interface, connect to different databases, yet still interact with the terminal emulators in unclear and often bizarre ways.
And what web-apps there are only work properly in IE6. Maybe IE7 if they're lucky.
And then there are the Excel macros . . .
How would you sandbox these applications without breaking all the tenuous and shoddy linkages that hold the whole house of cards together?
It's easy to say "screw 'em, shoulda coded right in the first place" but a major financial institution isn't going to roll out a new operating system that forces them to redevelop large swaths of their legacy application base without a damn good reason. These same banks have been "working on" migrating away from legacy apps for the better part of two decades and all they have to show for it are a couple of web apps and thin graphical veneers shoving commands through a terminal emulator and ridiculous piles of shockingly retarded Excel macros. They'd just as soon stick with what they have.
You lose power steering and anti-lock brakes, which can still make things considerably more dangerous and control of the car more difficult. But that's not really the main issue. The main issue is it's a silly analogy.
^Steven Colbert, that is.
And that's a key difference between science and faith. To steal a little from Steven, scientists shouldn't "believe the same thing on Wednesday that they believed on Monday, regardless of what happened on Tuesday." That's not how science works.
If a researcher discovers something surprising, the next steps are confirming their results and measurements were accurate and are repeatable. Then experiments can be devised to test why this might be so.
Nobody should do much believing in science. String Theory, Dark Matter and Dark Energy aren't things to be believed. They're just potential and incomplete explanations for what might be going on. The next step is trying to devise experiments to detect these things and/or test the implications.
Between Apple, Google, RIM & HP/Palm all using WebKit, it looks poised to become the dominant mobile browser engine. If that happens, I think MS may swallow their pride and follow suit. Why keep spending money on their own engine just to play catch-up? It could be a wise business decision in the near future.
I never thought so. I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a glass of mineral water and a glass of distilled in a blind taste test. If you're curious, go buy a jug at your local supermarket. They're only $0.79 / gallon (sometimes less) around here.
While they're not manufactured in the USA, EU, or Japan; another "not Chinese" company is HTC--maker of many widely available Android and WinMo phones. Their headquarters and manufacturing facilities are in Taiwan.
Not much, really. P != NP was the widely expected answer, it was just an unproven assumption. The fields that are affected have been proceeding as if P != NP was correct.
Check out Blindsight by Peter Watts. Aliens come to snuff us out because we essentially wasted their time with our endless radio chatter.
Internals are a bit disappointing. Why are they only putting a 624Mhz processor in their new flagship device? HTC, Apple, Moto & Samsung are all using 1ghz ARM variants in their flagship phones--with higher speeds and dual core phones on the near horizon.
I'm a total Android fanboy, mind you, but I'd like to see one or two of the "late comers" actually make a splash. Symbian and Palm are basically dead, HP might revive WebOS, but I doubt they'll pull it off. However, we still have WP7, BB6 and MeeGo on the horizon. Competition is good. I'm hoping history doesn't repeat itself like it did in the PC wars and we end up with a duopoly again. I think it's still early enough in the game that new entrants can still get a good share of business. Not to mention, people are much more fickle with their phones than their computers. During the PC wars, computers were serious investments that people expected to last several years. Phones are much more "disposable" and people replace them every year or two with something new and shiny. Hopefully that's enough to keep the market competitive and innovative.
Even if the tech gets to a point where Joe-Bob can buy a 5,000 watt solar array at Wal-Mart for $999, he won't be able to install it permanently in a safe manner, because you're still dealing with 5,000 watts. It becomes nothing more than a fuel-less generator. Mounting it permanently on his roof, tying it in to his household wiring and setting up a grid-tie net-metering arrangement will still take the work of professionals.
Of course, we may someday get to a point where the process is simplified and routine enough that installation costs might approach something like putting in a tankless water heater, gas lines or satellite dish.