"But Assange's most pressing headache is Sweden. Swedish prosecutors have issued an International and European Arrest Warrant (EAW) for him in connection with rape allegations..." I'm happy to accept the article got it wrong, but if so, can you please provide a reliable source for your assertion.
According to the Guardian newspaper, the warrant itself is likely illegal. For a European Arrest Warrant to be issued requires that the individual be charged with an offence. Assange has been charged with no offence. He is merely wanted as a witness.
As far as I'm aware, Java is still not officially supported on the N800 range. What has been supported from the beginning in 2004 is Python (PyMaemo) .
It's a positioning product aimed at changing market perception of Blackberry, with the OS and it's new features (like a decent web browser for a change - actually the same core web browser as on the iPad) will filter back to the mainstream products. Then there is 4G coming up - this will probably be one of the first 4G (data) phones to hit the market, and with desktop-like power.
It's actually a big step.
Books are going digital. Newspapers are going digital. Magazines are going digital. Journals are going digital. Print is under 10 years from being as popular as a dial-up internet connection. Not that it won't exist, but it will be a dinosaur existing in niche markets.
All the device manufacturers are going after the market. RIM is just the latest.
Well I guess the proof of the pudding will be in the quality of the games that get released.
But just thinking aboutthe few Wii games I do play:
In tennis, the angle the ball comes off the raquet depends on wrist action.
In tennis, it is finger movement that released the ball for serving.
In 10 pin bowling, it's the finger on the B key that allows you control of ball release.
In each of these cases, it's going to be interesting to see how the camera version copes.
My guess is that anything that requires a degree of manipulation of virtual objects isn't going to be as effective without a wand. On the other hand, the camera can see the whole (side) of the body at once. Horses for courses I guess, though obviously the best option would be a combination of the techs.
So this thing still has just one location for its camera?
I don't want to be picky, but you can quite easily get side-ways on to the camera (think the tennis game of the Wii). Hw accurate is the mechanism at picking up hand movements partly, possibly, fully obscured by the body? QAlso, how accurate is it at measuring angluar rotation and wrist movement.
Dancing and jumping around games are going to be fine (I guess), but anything that requires close observation of hand and arm movement is going to be a bit limited. Compared to "wand" technology, a single camera is going to be a bit limited in what can be achieved.
That would depend on whether you are prepared to recognize the sovereignty of totalitiarian dictatorships that torture and murder their own people.
Dictators (and their cronies) have no right to say what may happen in their own country, let alone anyone else's. They lose those rights the moment they seize power. All Microsoft is doing is helping the Chinse dictatorship to oppress their own people. For the religious amongst us, think Judas and the money.
Any Symbian series 60 phone can, in principle, be adapted for blind/low vision users using an application called Talks. The website is
http://www.nuance.com/talks/
There is a free trial download you can try.
But I'm already sitting in front of a Mac that uses multi-touch. It's called a Powerbook and it's been around for quite a while. I use two fingers on the touchpad to scroll the web page I'm editing on.....
I was at a presentation of their paper on this in Portland last year:
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1169001&jmp= cit&coll=ACM&dl=ACM&CFID=14265233&CFTOKEN=82641255 #CIT
From the abstract:
"...techniques that exploit the visual nature of sign language. Inspired by eyetracking results that show high resolution foveal vision is maintained around the face, we studied region-of-interest encodings (where the face is encoded at higher quality) as well as reduced frame rates (where fewer, better quality, frames are displayed every second). At all bit rates studied here, participants preferred moderate quality increases in the face region, sacrificing quality in other regions. They also preferred slightly lower frame rates because they yield better quality frames for a fixed bit rate. These results show promise for realtime access to the current cell phone network through signlanguage-specific encoding techniques."
Bob
I'm sure Steve's boys & girls have tried their best.
However, when you consider the breadth of, and potential combination of, visual, hearing, and mobility issues that affect the users of (particularly) mobile devices, it is highly probable that specific, tailored optimization of the user interface will be required for many users. Such specialized work is usually the domain of 3rd parties, rather than the Apple's of this world. Artificially restricting adaptation of the interface in the way proposed, blocks such 3rd party solutions and (I'm sure unintentionally) discriminates against disabled people.
If Apple really want to restrict 3rd party applications, then they need to find a way of handling this issue.
Bob Dodd
Researcher (Handheld Mobile Devices)
Accessibility Research Centre
University of Teesside
Jobs strategy also rules out the possibility of disabled users installing the 3rd party assistive technology they need to use such devices. That should play out well...
Adding noise doesn't prevent timing channels, it only reduces their bandwidth. With error-correcting encoding and multiple sends, timing channels can defeat most "noise" based solutions. Actually, they might even add noise themselves to hide within.
Even if the bandwidth is reduced to only 8 bits a day, useful information can still leak out
Also: don't assume a timing channel in a keyboard would send the current keypress. It would send the relevant one (over time)
You can get most of the facilities of the new phones now: I use a Nokia 6820 + Nokia 770 tablet combo.
The 770 has built-in WiFi and bluetooth. At home it connects to my wireless network, and when I go out, it can switch to my CDMA phone to access the Internet. So I get to carry a (relatively) small phone and the bigger 800x460 display tablet when I need it. And the 770, being based on Debian Linux, is open source.
The 770 has its problems, but I find the flexibility (and the ability to port my linux apps) beats dragging a PDA around when most of the time I just want to receieve calls and texts
I also don't have problems with my service provider: Vodafone even tested the bluetooth connection to the 770 for me when I got the phone (annual free upgrade, and I bought the 770 direct frm Nokia). I guess they have the sense to realize that they'll still make money from my data connections when I'm out.
The disabled users in Massachusetts do have a point:
Most existing Assistive Technology (AT) is geard towards Windows.
AT training is geard towards Windows and Windows applications.
Formal evaluation of special needs tends to be geared towards using Windows and Windows applications.
Disability legisation has made commercial developers (especially MS) at least consider accessibilty.
I'm not saying that is right or wrong, but that is where we are. If you force a switch to other platforms and applications, you do need to ensure that at least the current (and pretty awful) level of accessibility is maintained. And that's not just developing accessible FOSS applications, but providing training and support to the users, including the special needs evaluators & trainers. It's not a trivial task.
My own PhD research into improving the accessibility of mass-produced mobile devices (phones, pda's, psp's etc) is based on open and international standards. All work products (as far as my university allows) will be released under the GPL or eqivalent. So I'm not anti-FOSS at all, but one step forward and two backwards isn't progress. Unless it's managed properly, switching platforms and applications (to FOSS based ones, or to any others) can cause real problems for disabled users.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe it shouldn't be, but it is.
Allowing America's enemies access to the content, but not its own citizens, is madness.
That just says "Be ashamed, we certainly are".
Sorry, I posted anon by mistake.
According to the Guardian newspaper, the warrant itself is likely illegal. For a European Arrest Warrant to be issued requires that the individual be charged with an offence. Assange has been charged with no offence. He is merely wanted as a witness.
As far as I'm aware, Java is still not officially supported on the N800 range. What has been supported from the beginning in 2004 is Python (PyMaemo) .
It's a shame BlackBerry (aka RIM) haven't gone down the same route - they've tied themselves into a flavour of Java with a non-standard graphics API.
Nokia went for Python on Maemo. Looks like they knew what they were doing.
Since researchers constantly plagiarize their own work in order to get their paper count up, there are going to be some very red faces....
It's a positioning product aimed at changing market perception of Blackberry, with the OS and it's new features (like a decent web browser for a change - actually the same core web browser as on the iPad) will filter back to the mainstream products. Then there is 4G coming up - this will probably be one of the first 4G (data) phones to hit the market, and with desktop-like power. It's actually a big step.
Books are going digital. Newspapers are going digital. Magazines are going digital. Journals are going digital. Print is under 10 years from being as popular as a dial-up internet connection. Not that it won't exist, but it will be a dinosaur existing in niche markets. All the device manufacturers are going after the market. RIM is just the latest.
Well I guess the proof of the pudding will be in the quality of the games that get released.
But just thinking aboutthe few Wii games I do play:
In tennis, the angle the ball comes off the raquet depends on wrist action.
In tennis, it is finger movement that released the ball for serving.
In 10 pin bowling, it's the finger on the B key that allows you control of ball release.
In each of these cases, it's going to be interesting to see how the camera version copes.
My guess is that anything that requires a degree of manipulation of virtual objects isn't going to be as effective without a wand. On the other hand, the camera can see the whole (side) of the body at once. Horses for courses I guess, though obviously the best option would be a combination of the techs.
So this thing still has just one location for its camera? I don't want to be picky, but you can quite easily get side-ways on to the camera (think the tennis game of the Wii). Hw accurate is the mechanism at picking up hand movements partly, possibly, fully obscured by the body? QAlso, how accurate is it at measuring angluar rotation and wrist movement. Dancing and jumping around games are going to be fine (I guess), but anything that requires close observation of hand and arm movement is going to be a bit limited. Compared to "wand" technology, a single camera is going to be a bit limited in what can be achieved.
That would depend on whether you are prepared to recognize the sovereignty of totalitiarian dictatorships that torture and murder their own people. Dictators (and their cronies) have no right to say what may happen in their own country, let alone anyone else's. They lose those rights the moment they seize power. All Microsoft is doing is helping the Chinse dictatorship to oppress their own people. For the religious amongst us, think Judas and the money.
Any Symbian series 60 phone can, in principle, be adapted for blind/low vision users using an application called Talks. The website is http://www.nuance.com/talks/ There is a free trial download you can try.
British American Tobacco to be precise. Need I say more?
But I'm already sitting in front of a Mac that uses multi-touch. It's called a Powerbook and it's been around for quite a while. I use two fingers on the touchpad to scroll the web page I'm editing on.....
I was at a presentation of their paper on this in Portland last year: http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1169001&jmp= cit&coll=ACM&dl=ACM&CFID=14265233&CFTOKEN=82641255 #CIT
From the abstract:
"...techniques that exploit the visual nature of sign language. Inspired by eyetracking results that show high resolution foveal vision is maintained around the face, we studied region-of-interest encodings (where the face is encoded at higher quality) as well as reduced frame rates (where fewer, better quality, frames are displayed every second). At all bit rates studied here, participants preferred moderate quality increases in the face region, sacrificing quality in other regions. They also preferred slightly lower frame rates because they yield better quality frames for a fixed bit rate. These results show promise for realtime access to the current cell phone network through signlanguage-specific encoding techniques."
Bob
I'm sure Steve's boys & girls have tried their best. However, when you consider the breadth of, and potential combination of, visual, hearing, and mobility issues that affect the users of (particularly) mobile devices, it is highly probable that specific, tailored optimization of the user interface will be required for many users. Such specialized work is usually the domain of 3rd parties, rather than the Apple's of this world. Artificially restricting adaptation of the interface in the way proposed, blocks such 3rd party solutions and (I'm sure unintentionally) discriminates against disabled people. If Apple really want to restrict 3rd party applications, then they need to find a way of handling this issue. Bob Dodd Researcher (Handheld Mobile Devices) Accessibility Research Centre University of Teesside
Jobs strategy also rules out the possibility of disabled users installing the 3rd party assistive technology they need to use such devices. That should play out well...
Adding noise doesn't prevent timing channels, it only reduces their bandwidth. With error-correcting encoding and multiple sends, timing channels can defeat most "noise" based solutions. Actually, they might even add noise themselves to hide within.
Even if the bandwidth is reduced to only 8 bits a day, useful information can still leak out
Also: don't assume a timing channel in a keyboard would send the current keypress. It would send the relevant one (over time)
You can get most of the facilities of the new phones now: I use a Nokia 6820 + Nokia 770 tablet combo.
The 770 has built-in WiFi and bluetooth. At home it connects to my wireless network, and when I go out, it can switch to my CDMA phone to access the Internet. So I get to carry a (relatively) small phone and the bigger 800x460 display tablet when I need it. And the 770, being based on Debian Linux, is open source.
The 770 has its problems, but I find the flexibility (and the ability to port my linux apps) beats dragging a PDA around when most of the time I just want to receieve calls and texts
I also don't have problems with my service provider: Vodafone even tested the bluetooth connection to the 770 for me when I got the phone (annual free upgrade, and I bought the 770 direct frm Nokia). I guess they have the sense to realize that they'll still make money from my data connections when I'm out.
The disabled users in Massachusetts do have a point:
I'm not saying that is right or wrong, but that is where we are. If you force a switch to other platforms and applications, you do need to ensure that at least the current (and pretty awful) level of accessibility is maintained. And that's not just developing accessible FOSS applications, but providing training and support to the users, including the special needs evaluators & trainers. It's not a trivial task.
My own PhD research into improving the accessibility of mass-produced mobile devices (phones, pda's, psp's etc) is based on open and international standards. All work products (as far as my university allows) will be released under the GPL or eqivalent. So I'm not anti-FOSS at all, but one step forward and two backwards isn't progress. Unless it's managed properly, switching platforms and applications (to FOSS based ones, or to any others) can cause real problems for disabled users.