The SYNC system has nothing to do with the powertrain. It's only used for infotainment and climate control.
So you're saying it'll still have a shit transmission.
Ford seems to have their priorities seriously screwed up if that is the case. Shouldn't they make sure the powertrain works before working on the infotainment system.
They made the right decision. QNX is one of the more enjoyable embedded OSes (IMO YMMV of course).
Having rented a Ford Focus with the 4sp automatic "Sync by Microsoft" gearbox, if they had of punched themselves in the head until their eye fell out they still would have made the right choice.
The gearbox in a recent Focus can only be described as bone jarringly violent. Every time that thing changed gear the selector fork forcibly readjusted my spine whilst moving the cog.
Making a decent 4sp slushbox is so basic. even Great Wall and Tata can do it without screwing it up. The 4sp slushbox in recent Subaru Impreza is fine, why did Ford need to screw it up.
Even Ford's 6sp automatic in the Mustang was horrible. You'd click the plus button (stupidly placed on the gear knob, FFS even a Hyundai has flappy paddles this day and age) and you could go away and make a cup of tea before it realised it was a gearbox and moved a cog. I've never driven an automatic Ford I could call decent, even the much hyped ZF box in the Falcon (Australia only model) was a horror.
From your perspective, India seems cheap... but for your average American job that pays $30K their still getting barely above a living wage in India and there's 10 people behind them willing to take that from them. The same job in the US allows them to own a car, a house, live in a nice city.
On the flip side, earning US$30K p/a in India allows you to live a very good life... but it's not a common wage.
How about all those metal detectors they already have.
1. Shut down the body scanners
2. Drop all the silly ID checking
3. Everyone goes through a metal detector
4. Luggage goes through an x-ray machine, looking only for weapons or explosives.
No weapons or explosives? On you go.
To be fair, there are other items that should not fly.
Corrosives, flammables, even organics in some cases. One of the biggest problems customs inspectors in Australia is the movement of plant and animal material that may contain pests between Australian states.
As for an ID check, well checking boarding passes is a good idea... So if I have to show my license or passport at the same time it's no trouble. A simple ID check prevent some low life from taking off with my boarding pass (well not mine, but a lot of other people will be that careless).
But yes, drop the body scanners in favour of x-rays.
How about just going back to a reasonable quick scan on the way to the plane? The whole premise was that anything you could get through such a scan was worthless. Along the way we found out that you needed locking, reinforced cockpit doors in the bargain, and now we have those. Why not just go back to x-raying luggage, and maybe run the humans past the explosives sniffer? Non-invasive screening of humans seems fairly reasonable. I wouldn't want to let people on my multi-million-dollar aircraft without it, if I had one:p
It sounds like you've travelled through a decent airport.
One of the fastest international airports I've ever gotten through was KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport) in Malaysia. I was running late due to a delay on a previous leg on a different airline, I managed to get checked in, through immigration and security and to the gate in less than 30 minutes. KLIA is not a rare example either, Changi Aiport (Singapore) is the same. Both KLIA and Changi have security at the gate, this is just a simple X-Ray for bags and a metal detector for people. To be 100% fair they are both new airports and the idea of putting security at the gate is relatively new. Another feature of KLIA security are the military police walking around in kevlar jackets and brandishing MP5's... although this will probably be excessive for most western airports but a visible police presence is a very good deterrent.
Moving security to the gate clears out a serious bottleneck in airport security.
Domestic mass shootings, despite the political rhetoric surrounding them, are always the work of a single individual suffering from some kind of mental illness. They lack all but the most rudimentary planning and execution, they're only quasi-rational.
Sorry, but this is a complete cop-out.
Mass shootings, whilst never rational (no form of violence really is) can be very well planned. The case of Columbine or Charles Whitman in the US or Anders Brevik in Norway. Whilst Brevik and Whitman were quite disturbed, they weren't incapable of planning or forethought. In fact in their cases, the planning seems quite rational even though the goal was quite mad.
Gun nuts like to blame mental illness because it draws attention away from the fact ready access to guns is the main reason people are able to go on shooting sprees. The fact of the matter is, a coward without a gun remains powerless, a coward with a gun thinks they have some power and control.
Now you're right that the US hasn't suffered any organised attacks because there isn't really any cause or impetus for it. There aren't many hyper radicals in the US and for the most part people are well fed and happy so the breeding grounds needed to turn ordinary people into radicals is not there. But if there were, the violence in the US would make Colombia or Somalia look tame.
Had it only gone to Nokias servers then it could have been an accident - not removing certain debugging code for instance used to tracing.
But sending to Microsoft servers as well as Nokia servers... that is more like a deliberate action.
And hidden somewhere in the T&C you agreed to when you turned the phone on is a line that says something like:
"by accepting this agreement you agree to join the Microsoft Customer Service Experience(TM) feedback program and agree to transmit data to Microsoft which may be shared with select Microsoft Partners".
And if you think Apple's not doing the exact same thing, I have a bridge to sell you.
Google cops a lot of crap for admitting that it's collecting some data, but unlike Apple and Microsoft, they're admitting it, they're telling you what they're doing with it and demonstrating that it's sanitised of personally identifiable information. Google should be scrutinised, it keeps them on their toes but you've got to be delusional to think that Apple and Microsoft aren't doing the same thing, they're just not being honest about it (nor do we know if they're sanitising the data).
Nissan might have more luck selling their expensive electric if the darn thing weren't sprung like an overstuffed haywagon. The suspension is so soft there is not a trace of road feel, and the power steering is so squishy it's like driving a virtual reality vehicle in a bang-em-up game.
Its an electric car, not a sports car.
The primary audience wants squishy steering and soft suspension. It's like complaining that a Honda Civic is a boring ride, well no shit, but the people who buy Civic's want a boring car (and if it works for them, good on em).
At last month's CES, I mislaid a microphone that I'd just bought: too many items in little black pouches, and that one disappeared on a patch of dark carpet when I got something else out of my bag.
As a photographer I routinely walk around with a couple of grands worth of camera gear.
I don't label.
For stuff like camera gear, no-one willing to steal it gives a crap if it's labelled. I've got the S/N of most electronics on the receipt (which if I haven't received via email I'll scan and email it to myself). The S/N is enough to ID the equipment if hell freezes over and the cops manage to recover it.
But I agree with you, prevention is better than cure because label or no once you lose (to theft or carelessness) something you've got buckley's chance of getting it back.
It's hard to think that FaceBook would take this threat seriously. It's a $10+ Billion deal. Throwing in some extra first class seats for a different day would be the equivalent of a give-a-penny-take-a-penny dish compared to this.
What actually happened was this person said "we've already agreed on the price, just hurry up and get the paperwork ready so I can sign it".
Hitler was elected. Being elected doesn't mean you aren't a tyrant.
Saying Hitler was elected was a misnomer. The Nazi party had party members monitor the voting booths to ensure everyone was voting "correctly". They were basically stand over men.
Not that I disagree with your point but Hitler is an example of how democracy is subverted, not how democracy can still make mistakes.
George W Bush and Tony Abbott are better examples of that.
The 2014 Honda Civic I have heard can interface with a phone via an HDMI cable. Full blown interfaces are inevitable, probably in less than 5 years.
The selling point of integration via HDMI is that vehicles no longer need to have their own navigation systems (which is extra equipment and rather pointless in the smartphone era) and instead uses the phone navigation app.
[Shorter version: Apple acquiring Tesla would be stupid for both companies. Tesla shouldn't exclude Android, Apple doesn't have an interest in the auto market --- and standard interfaces will be expected in the near future... ]
Apple has a very big interest in the auto market. they've been trying to push IOS onto in car entertainment systems for well over a year now. However the new systems seem to be floundering with consumers who find them annoying and counter-intuitive.
There is no reason Musk should sell Tesla to Apple though. Apple would just sink it, there's too much competition for Apple to survive with every man and his dog now releasing hybrids and full blown EV's. Tesla needs to remain at the forefront of EV tech to remain relevant and Apple just cant do that.
[and standard interfaces will be expected in the near future... ]
Chortle, chortle.
A standard car infotainment interface or protocol wont be introduced unless its mandated by law. Even then they'll find ways to skirt it. OBDII (On Board Diagnostics) was mandated in the 90's, sure every car now comes with an OBDII port but you still often need manufacturer specific tools and/or software to make sense of some of the data and to make changes.
Japanese manufacturers like Honda and Toyota are big on standards, that's why you've got HDMI in the 2014 Civic... But American and European manufacturers (BMW, Ford, GM, Mercedes) are fervently against it.
Why haven't the workers taken over and socialized the means of production yet? Why is our destiny as a species tied to the whims of a handful of super-wealthy idle parasites?
Because in the end most humans are still greedy chimps at the core. Give us power and we will abuse it, and we will do anything we can to not share it. It's just human nature.
Quite true, but shaking up the foundations by having the less well off chimps feed on the corpses of the well to do chimps is good for a stagnant society.
Ultimately centralised power leads to abuse, decentralised power leads to anarchy which results in just as much abuse, just focused at the local level which leaves people wishing to centralise power.
If you mean hating an ideology that wants to subdue or kill all others then I suppose I am just as islamaphobic as the allies in WWII were naziphobic.
The correct term is Xenophobic, which you seem to fit to a tea.
Claiming the all Muslims are radical because of the actions of a few is like claiming allAmericans are racist because of the actions of the KKK.
Ironically, since you've already godwined this, the way you're acting is more like the Nazi propagandists of the 30's used to operate, except you're picking on Muslims instead of Jews. It's the big lie all over again, the evil Jew, erm sorry, I mean Muslim is coming to take over your lands, covert your wife and turk your jerb. Do not question the evidece, it is as clear as day and I'll draw a bad analogy to some old tragedy to try to prevent you from thinking critically about what I've said. Barbarians at the gate and all that.
"Past performance is not indicative of future returns".
The slash and burn method has run its course. Increases in yield per acre are stagnating, in some cases, dropping, because of resource depletion and bad farming practices.
Fixed that for you. The problems we're getting in farms these days like pesticide resistance, salination and soil erosion are due to bad farming practices, but not the green movement. Decreasing yields are due to arable lands being systematically destroyed by bad practices as not doing crop rotation and relying on nitrate based fertilisers to compensate. Soil erosion is often directly linked to farmers removing trees from the edges of fields.
Looks like there wasn't enough competition on the market.
Let me guess, the tax was reduced by a complex procedure that applied to some business and not others, and was too expensive for small business to follow anyway. Am I right?
Nope, if it was done in the same fashion as Australia, some items are GST (Goods and Services Tax, or version of VAT) exempt, all the stores had to do was alter their POS (Point of Sale) settings to not charge tax on that. Which the stores in Norway would have had to have done to pocket the difference anyway.
I'm guessing you're an American and are used to a sales tax system that is a complete and total clusterfuck, countries with VAT/GST are much simpler.
Neither a fortress nor a maiden will hold out long, as soon as they begin to parley. (via Ben Franklin).
A device talking to — and accepting instructions to modify itself from — something foreign over the air is likely to get hacked eventually. With phones that may not be bad enough to warrant the inconvenience of mandating wired updates. Cars are a different story...
This was a key plot device of the last Fast and the Furious movie, with the exception that they fired a device onto the car which hacked the ECU (Engine Control Unit) through the skin of the car (which isn't possible) but when they're connected to a wide area network hacking the ECU and other computers becomes possible. Picture an AWD (All Wheel Drive) system hacked to send all the power to the rear left wheel.
/Points at coffin
We'll need two of these by tonight.
Let's imagine you could buy a car that was $2000 cheaper without airbags - Would people buy them?
No need to imagine. People did. And people still do. I bought plenty of cars that didn't have airbags or abs or stability control or seatbelt pretensioners or emergency brake assist or power steering,even (the horror!).
But nowadays, people do give serious thought to their safety, which is why even the base model crapbox has ABS and airbags. If I had a choice between a car advertised as "5 STAR crash rating" and one without that was 5 grand cheaper, the one with the 5 stars gets my money every time. If one of those features saves me in an accident - or even better, helps me to avoid one - it's worth it.
Which makes the "star" rating system completely useless.
Especially seeing as they system can be gamed, a car that is downright dangerous to the driver or pedestrains can still get a 5 star ENCAP/ANACP rating because it's got a number of devices like Adaptive Cruse Control which aren't safety features at all.
The real non issue is not the number of screen sizes combined with a marketing mandate. It's the sheer number of versions that you have to support. With Android, there are still devices being sold today with version 2.1 all the way to the latest release.
There, fixed that for you.
Almost all the API's are backwards compatible, so the applications written for 2.1 will work on 4.4. This only becomes an issue when.
1. you use a non standard API (I.E. one put in by Samsung on their phones).
2. You target an API on a higher level (I.E. an API that started in 4.0 wont work in 2.6).
Its better to support half of 80% of the market than 90% of 20% of the market.
You're looking at it from the point of view of a dabbler; a hobbyist.
And the throngs of wide eyed, naive IOS developers who think it's the land of milk and honey where money falls from the cloud and their app will magically makes them rich.
Most developers never break even on the $99 subscription fee, let alone for the equipment and almost never for the time.
I know over 20, all hopped on the bandwagon and bought mac's. Not one has made $99. Most have abandoned their applications around the Iphone 4 days.
Evil Genius $10 @ GOG
Build your evil lair, send your minions out into the world to plot, teal money and recover cool artifacts, and finally take over the WORLD!! Why Despicable Me has not cloned this is totally beyond me..
Evil Genius is a brilliant game, a little bit flawed but it easily makes up for it.
Slashdot Mirror
Ford has announced that their in-vehicle technology called Sync
Actually the Australian produced Ford Falcon, handles like a boat.
The SYNC system has nothing to do with the powertrain. It's only used for infotainment and climate control.
So you're saying it'll still have a shit transmission.
Ford seems to have their priorities seriously screwed up if that is the case. Shouldn't they make sure the powertrain works before working on the infotainment system.
They made the right decision. QNX is one of the more enjoyable embedded OSes (IMO YMMV of course).
Having rented a Ford Focus with the 4sp automatic "Sync by Microsoft" gearbox, if they had of punched themselves in the head until their eye fell out they still would have made the right choice.
The gearbox in a recent Focus can only be described as bone jarringly violent. Every time that thing changed gear the selector fork forcibly readjusted my spine whilst moving the cog.
Making a decent 4sp slushbox is so basic. even Great Wall and Tata can do it without screwing it up. The 4sp slushbox in recent Subaru Impreza is fine, why did Ford need to screw it up.
Even Ford's 6sp automatic in the Mustang was horrible. You'd click the plus button (stupidly placed on the gear knob, FFS even a Hyundai has flappy paddles this day and age) and you could go away and make a cup of tea before it realised it was a gearbox and moved a cog. I've never driven an automatic Ford I could call decent, even the much hyped ZF box in the Falcon (Australia only model) was a horror.
Can't They just live and work in India?
From your perspective, India seems cheap... but for your average American job that pays $30K their still getting barely above a living wage in India and there's 10 people behind them willing to take that from them. The same job in the US allows them to own a car, a house, live in a nice city.
On the flip side, earning US$30K p/a in India allows you to live a very good life... but it's not a common wage.
Phones are litterally like cars.
You can't sell a stolen car. So you chop up the parts since they're not IDed and sell them.
You don't live in Europe do you. Steal a 5 or 7 series Bimmer from Germany on Tuesday, sell it in Poland on Wednesday.
Phones are the same, except borders are easier to get over. Steal a phone in the US, sell it in Canada... or Japan... or Poland all via EBay.
How about all those metal detectors they already have.
1. Shut down the body scanners
2. Drop all the silly ID checking
3. Everyone goes through a metal detector
4. Luggage goes through an x-ray machine, looking only for weapons or explosives.
No weapons or explosives? On you go.
To be fair, there are other items that should not fly.
Corrosives, flammables, even organics in some cases. One of the biggest problems customs inspectors in Australia is the movement of plant and animal material that may contain pests between Australian states.
As for an ID check, well checking boarding passes is a good idea... So if I have to show my license or passport at the same time it's no trouble. A simple ID check prevent some low life from taking off with my boarding pass (well not mine, but a lot of other people will be that careless).
But yes, drop the body scanners in favour of x-rays.
How about just going back to a reasonable quick scan on the way to the plane? The whole premise was that anything you could get through such a scan was worthless. Along the way we found out that you needed locking, reinforced cockpit doors in the bargain, and now we have those. Why not just go back to x-raying luggage, and maybe run the humans past the explosives sniffer? Non-invasive screening of humans seems fairly reasonable. I wouldn't want to let people on my multi-million-dollar aircraft without it, if I had one :p
It sounds like you've travelled through a decent airport.
One of the fastest international airports I've ever gotten through was KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport) in Malaysia. I was running late due to a delay on a previous leg on a different airline, I managed to get checked in, through immigration and security and to the gate in less than 30 minutes. KLIA is not a rare example either, Changi Aiport (Singapore) is the same. Both KLIA and Changi have security at the gate, this is just a simple X-Ray for bags and a metal detector for people. To be 100% fair they are both new airports and the idea of putting security at the gate is relatively new. Another feature of KLIA security are the military police walking around in kevlar jackets and brandishing MP5's... although this will probably be excessive for most western airports but a visible police presence is a very good deterrent.
Moving security to the gate clears out a serious bottleneck in airport security.
Domestic mass shootings, despite the political rhetoric surrounding them, are always the work of a single individual suffering from some kind of mental illness. They lack all but the most rudimentary planning and execution, they're only quasi-rational.
Sorry, but this is a complete cop-out.
Mass shootings, whilst never rational (no form of violence really is) can be very well planned. The case of Columbine or Charles Whitman in the US or Anders Brevik in Norway. Whilst Brevik and Whitman were quite disturbed, they weren't incapable of planning or forethought. In fact in their cases, the planning seems quite rational even though the goal was quite mad.
Gun nuts like to blame mental illness because it draws attention away from the fact ready access to guns is the main reason people are able to go on shooting sprees. The fact of the matter is, a coward without a gun remains powerless, a coward with a gun thinks they have some power and control.
Now you're right that the US hasn't suffered any organised attacks because there isn't really any cause or impetus for it. There aren't many hyper radicals in the US and for the most part people are well fed and happy so the breeding grounds needed to turn ordinary people into radicals is not there. But if there were, the violence in the US would make Colombia or Somalia look tame.
That looks like it is deliberate.
Had it only gone to Nokias servers then it could have been an accident - not removing certain debugging code for instance used to tracing.
But sending to Microsoft servers as well as Nokia servers... that is more like a deliberate action.
And hidden somewhere in the T&C you agreed to when you turned the phone on is a line that says something like:
"by accepting this agreement you agree to join the Microsoft Customer Service Experience(TM) feedback program and agree to transmit data to Microsoft which may be shared with select Microsoft Partners".
And if you think Apple's not doing the exact same thing, I have a bridge to sell you.
Google cops a lot of crap for admitting that it's collecting some data, but unlike Apple and Microsoft, they're admitting it, they're telling you what they're doing with it and demonstrating that it's sanitised of personally identifiable information. Google should be scrutinised, it keeps them on their toes but you've got to be delusional to think that Apple and Microsoft aren't doing the same thing, they're just not being honest about it (nor do we know if they're sanitising the data).
Nissan might have more luck selling their expensive electric if the darn thing weren't sprung like an overstuffed haywagon. The suspension is so soft there is not a trace of road feel, and the power steering is so squishy it's like driving a virtual reality vehicle in a bang-em-up game.
Its an electric car, not a sports car.
The primary audience wants squishy steering and soft suspension. It's like complaining that a Honda Civic is a boring ride, well no shit, but the people who buy Civic's want a boring car (and if it works for them, good on em).
Where this rock is about as old as the social and development views of our current Prime Minister..
However unlike Tony Abbott, the rock is worth something to Australia.
As a photographer I routinely walk around with a couple of grands worth of camera gear.
I don't label.
For stuff like camera gear, no-one willing to steal it gives a crap if it's labelled. I've got the S/N of most electronics on the receipt (which if I haven't received via email I'll scan and email it to myself). The S/N is enough to ID the equipment if hell freezes over and the cops manage to recover it.
But I agree with you, prevention is better than cure because label or no once you lose (to theft or carelessness) something you've got buckley's chance of getting it back.
It's hard to think that FaceBook would take this threat seriously. It's a $10+ Billion deal. Throwing in some extra first class seats for a different day would be the equivalent of a give-a-penny-take-a-penny dish compared to this.
What actually happened was this person said "we've already agreed on the price, just hurry up and get the paperwork ready so I can sign it".
Hitler was elected. Being elected doesn't mean you aren't a tyrant.
Saying Hitler was elected was a misnomer. The Nazi party had party members monitor the voting booths to ensure everyone was voting "correctly". They were basically stand over men.
Not that I disagree with your point but Hitler is an example of how democracy is subverted, not how democracy can still make mistakes. George W Bush and Tony Abbott are better examples of that.
Sure, those company towns saw no-one exploited.
It's not the GP's fault, he's just repeating what the magic libertarian unicorn told him.
The 2014 Honda Civic I have heard can interface with a phone via an HDMI cable. Full blown interfaces are inevitable, probably in less than 5 years.
... ]
The selling point of integration via HDMI is that vehicles no longer need to have their own navigation systems (which is extra equipment and rather pointless in the smartphone era) and instead uses the phone navigation app.
[Shorter version: Apple acquiring Tesla would be stupid for both companies. Tesla shouldn't exclude Android, Apple doesn't have an interest in the auto market --- and standard interfaces will be expected in the near future
Apple has a very big interest in the auto market. they've been trying to push IOS onto in car entertainment systems for well over a year now. However the new systems seem to be floundering with consumers who find them annoying and counter-intuitive.
There is no reason Musk should sell Tesla to Apple though. Apple would just sink it, there's too much competition for Apple to survive with every man and his dog now releasing hybrids and full blown EV's. Tesla needs to remain at the forefront of EV tech to remain relevant and Apple just cant do that.
[and standard interfaces will be expected in the near future ... ]
Chortle, chortle.
A standard car infotainment interface or protocol wont be introduced unless its mandated by law. Even then they'll find ways to skirt it. OBDII (On Board Diagnostics) was mandated in the 90's, sure every car now comes with an OBDII port but you still often need manufacturer specific tools and/or software to make sense of some of the data and to make changes.
Japanese manufacturers like Honda and Toyota are big on standards, that's why you've got HDMI in the 2014 Civic... But American and European manufacturers (BMW, Ford, GM, Mercedes) are fervently against it.
Why haven't the workers taken over and socialized the means of production yet? Why is our destiny as a species tied to the whims of a handful of super-wealthy idle parasites?
Because in the end most humans are still greedy chimps at the core. Give us power and we will abuse it, and we will do anything we can to not share it. It's just human nature.
Quite true, but shaking up the foundations by having the less well off chimps feed on the corpses of the well to do chimps is good for a stagnant society.
Ultimately centralised power leads to abuse, decentralised power leads to anarchy which results in just as much abuse, just focused at the local level which leaves people wishing to centralise power.
Racist much? Maybe not. Islamaphobic much, though?
If you mean hating an ideology that wants to subdue or kill all others then I suppose I am just as islamaphobic as the allies in WWII were naziphobic.
The correct term is Xenophobic, which you seem to fit to a tea.
Claiming the all Muslims are radical because of the actions of a few is like claiming allAmericans are racist because of the actions of the KKK.
Ironically, since you've already godwined this, the way you're acting is more like the Nazi propagandists of the 30's used to operate, except you're picking on Muslims instead of Jews. It's the big lie all over again, the evil Jew, erm sorry, I mean Muslim is coming to take over your lands, covert your wife and turk your jerb. Do not question the evidece, it is as clear as day and I'll draw a bad analogy to some old tragedy to try to prevent you from thinking critically about what I've said. Barbarians at the gate and all that.
Same old xenophobic bollocks.
"Past performance is not indicative of future returns".
The slash and burn method has run its course. Increases in yield per acre are stagnating, in some cases, dropping, because of resource depletion and bad farming practices.
Fixed that for you. The problems we're getting in farms these days like pesticide resistance, salination and soil erosion are due to bad farming practices, but not the green movement. Decreasing yields are due to arable lands being systematically destroyed by bad practices as not doing crop rotation and relying on nitrate based fertilisers to compensate. Soil erosion is often directly linked to farmers removing trees from the edges of fields.
Looks like there wasn't enough competition on the market.
Let me guess, the tax was reduced by a complex procedure that applied to some business and not others, and was too expensive for small business to follow anyway. Am I right?
Nope, if it was done in the same fashion as Australia, some items are GST (Goods and Services Tax, or version of VAT) exempt, all the stores had to do was alter their POS (Point of Sale) settings to not charge tax on that. Which the stores in Norway would have had to have done to pocket the difference anyway.
I'm guessing you're an American and are used to a sales tax system that is a complete and total clusterfuck, countries with VAT/GST are much simpler.
Neither a fortress nor a maiden will hold out long, as soon as they begin to parley. (via Ben Franklin).
A device talking to — and accepting instructions to modify itself from — something foreign over the air is likely to get hacked eventually. With phones that may not be bad enough to warrant the inconvenience of mandating wired updates. Cars are a different story...
This was a key plot device of the last Fast and the Furious movie, with the exception that they fired a device onto the car which hacked the ECU (Engine Control Unit) through the skin of the car (which isn't possible) but when they're connected to a wide area network hacking the ECU and other computers becomes possible. Picture an AWD (All Wheel Drive) system hacked to send all the power to the rear left wheel.
/Points at coffin
We'll need two of these by tonight.
Let's imagine you could buy a car that was $2000 cheaper without airbags - Would people buy them?
No need to imagine. People did. And people still do. I bought plenty of cars that didn't have airbags or abs or stability control or seatbelt pretensioners or emergency brake assist or power steering,even (the horror!).
But nowadays, people do give serious thought to their safety, which is why even the base model crapbox has ABS and airbags. If I had a choice between a car advertised as "5 STAR crash rating" and one without that was 5 grand cheaper, the one with the 5 stars gets my money every time. If one of those features saves me in an accident - or even better, helps me to avoid one - it's worth it.
Which makes the "star" rating system completely useless. Especially seeing as they system can be gamed, a car that is downright dangerous to the driver or pedestrains can still get a 5 star ENCAP/ANACP rating because it's got a number of devices like Adaptive Cruse Control which aren't safety features at all.
The real non issue is not the number of screen sizes combined with a marketing mandate. It's the sheer number of versions that you have to support. With Android, there are still devices being sold today with version 2.1 all the way to the latest release.
There, fixed that for you.
Almost all the API's are backwards compatible, so the applications written for 2.1 will work on 4.4. This only becomes an issue when.
1. you use a non standard API (I.E. one put in by Samsung on their phones).
2. You target an API on a higher level (I.E. an API that started in 4.0 wont work in 2.6).
Its better to support half of 80% of the market than 90% of 20% of the market.
And the throngs of wide eyed, naive IOS developers who think it's the land of milk and honey where money falls from the cloud and their app will magically makes them rich.
Most developers never break even on the $99 subscription fee, let alone for the equipment and almost never for the time.
I know over 20, all hopped on the bandwagon and bought mac's. Not one has made $99. Most have abandoned their applications around the Iphone 4 days.
Evil Genius $10 @ GOG
Build your evil lair, send your minions out into the world to plot, teal money and recover cool artifacts, and finally take over the WORLD!! Why Despicable Me has not cloned this is totally beyond me..
Evil Genius is a brilliant game, a little bit flawed but it easily makes up for it.