They've said the source will be released once the first phone hits the market. That's forthcoming enough. Sure, they could give an exact date if they wanted to be more forthcoming, but unless they're guaranteed to hit it, it's just opening themselves up to exactly this type of criticism if they slip (even if they slip for reasons beyond their control). They've been plenty forthcoming enough to answer the unfounded fears expressed in TFA, that's all that really matters.
The code is in the SDK for testing purposes. In fact it's probably a strategy to ensure quality that they are holding off on the full release, so that app developers have time to test and update their products where necessary before a new OS is released (because you know the second it is, modders and third party phone vendors will all be rushing to be amongst the first to bring ICS to devices - with no testing period you'll have a lot of disgruntled customers).
Yes, and it's pretty common for the SDK to be released ahead of the product, so that developers can ensure applications that worked on the previous version still work, or develop pathces where required. There's nothing unusual whatsoever in seeing an SDK released before the official product - even developers are used to this model.
Given that Google said already the code will be released when the first device that uses it is released (which is some weeks away), even that's not necessary right now - right now I'd say just give them until the point where they've already promised the code before the wild speculation begins.
Ditto - this is all based on Honeycomb, but the reason for that not being opened up was explained (they were afraid manufacturers would run with it on mobiles even though it wasn't optimised for mobiles, giving the public a false bad impression of the OS). If Google wanted to move to closed source, it's already done the hard work breaking that news with Honeycomb, they'd just stick with that line. What they wouldn't do is announce ICS is going to be open, get everyone excited, then pull the rug a second time - that would drag their public image with many people through the dirt. For that reason, and the comments from JBQ, I find it massively unlikely they're planning to keep ICS closed, but conspiracy theorists will be conspiracy theorists.
Google (aside from the Nexus, which is more of a showcase device) isn't a phone manufacturer. Why would they care what clone manufacturers in China are doing? If anything, keeping the source open should encourage more of these clone manufacturers to adopt Android, which in turn will increase their market share (and the number of people shopping in the Android market).
There's a difference between keeping up pressure on companies to do the right thing (good) and blatant overreactions that harm the company's image without justification (bad). Claiming that the fact that the source isn't available the second the OS is released, despite assurances from the company that it would be open source and nothing official to the contrary, somehow means the end of all open source from said company forever is just insanity level overreaction. Let's give them a chance to do the right thing before we all don the Guy Fawkes masks and march on Google HQ.
It seems like design students with incredible vision are clearly more common than you seem to think. Taking a single phone and a single tablet out of context from a manufacturer who has probably produced hundreds of variant designs over the years seems like a desperate ploy to win an argument. You could equally argue this shows Samsung's incredible diversity compared to Apple's "come up with one design and slightly tweak it ad infinitum" approach, but then that would be just as blind as your skewed point of view. The truth is its in the customer's interest for there to be good competition on the technical front combined with simplification on the design front. If one particular manufacturer is allowed to "own" simplified design, that's bad news for everyone. This isn't about "my favourite tech company is better than yours" it's about "this stupid law is holding back advances at what could otherwise be an amazing point in the history of technology".
I suspect that's intentional - the troll images pointedly show only devices that support a very narrow, specific point. This goes the opposite way in suggesting that there's actually far more diversity since iPad, but it does so as a tongue in cheek exercise. In reality there was diversity before AND after, and a lot of devices do end up looking the same or very similar, not because everyone is stealing each other's ideas, but because there's only so much you can do with the technology and still have it usable. If you said to a hundred designers here's your brief, you have a big, touch sensitive screen, maybe one to five hard buttons, it needs to weigh this much, here's the footprint for the internal hardware and a user has to be able to comfortable hold and use it for prolonged periods, even in a world where the iPad didn't exist I'd not be surprised to see 20-25% of the designs come back very similar to iPad and maybe another 30-40% looking vaguely similar.
The best we can hope for is that enough companies get bitten enough times that they eventually turn some of their capital towards lobbying for less stupid IP laws. The big problem with that is that the big companies can afford a few losses and IP still overall works in their favour to keep the little guys off the playing field.
I did read - and I have no citation for this nor do I know the validity of the claim so I add it here as purely anecdotal - that Samsung supply certain components to Apple (the two obviously also have a lot of cross licensing deals for various bits of tech). If that is true, it might explain their reluctance to go to court until it started hurting their bottom line sufficiently to justify risking their existing contracts with Apple - does anyone have any more information on this?
The key thing is having a passenger who is aware of the situation outside the car. A passenger can keep you alert and active on a long, tedious drive, and can therefore be a good thing. In reality if you are navigating tricky obstacles, most passengers will shut up until you're out of danger, not throw maths questions at you:) That's why the phone is worse - the person on the other end has no way to read the driving situation and adjust their level of engagement accordingly.
My guess is that it's as bad or worse, it just doesn't show up as much in the statistics because, well, how do you prove someone was texting when they crashed unless they admit it after the fact? It's much easier to pull their call logs and show their phone was actively engaged in a call at the time, with texts it's much harder to prove unless you can show a pattern of behaviour over the preceeding minutes, and even then it's not nearly as conclusive.
Not to mention in rural Nebraska it should be even easier to find a spot to pull over if you need to make/take a call than it is in the middle of a busy metropolis, so there's even less excuse.
True, but given the number of people I see still using their mobiles while driving in a country that has a blanket ban, I'd argue that new laws aren't doing a great job either. If someone is driving dangerously, there's laws to cover that already. Do we really need a new law for each new piece of technology that comes along when they all really equate to the same thing? I could understand if I saw officers in unmarked police cars constantly pulling people over for driving while on the phone that it might act as a deterrent for the times when people think they won't get caught, but in reality I've never witnessed this, it feels more like another way for the government to collect cash or for police forces to inflate their crime solving statistics.
The only prohibition that's really needed is against driving dangerously. The real issue is enforcement - typically most people don't drive dangerously while they're around police cars, so in order to minimise bad driving we look at the most common factors that cause them. I think the thing that's likely to change this in the next ten years or so is going to be cameras fitted to cars. We're at the point now where we can fit cheap, high quality cars facing in all directions to cars for a cost that's cheap enough that an incentive in the form of cheaper insurance (since it's easier to prove you are not at fault) would be enough to make it widespread. Suddenly bad drivers aren't just worried about the police spotting them, anyone can record their bad behaviour and report it later. That might lead to more convictions for people driving badly and less need for blanket prohibitions that affect good drivers (eating an apple while driving, for instance, isn't inherently dangerous).
Same story here in the UK. Over here it's punishable by a fine, which kind of makes people think it's okay to do, especially when they might only get fined one out of every hundred times (probably not even that, I've never personally witnessed a police car pull someone over for talking on their phone). I can't help thinking that if it was a criminal conviction it might be more of a deterrent than a cash boosting exercise.
That's true, but you can only go so far before it potentially becomes counter-productive. Fiddling with radios, for instance, might lead to accidents. The obvious answer is to ban radios, but how many lives does the radio save by keeping people awake and alert on long, boring road journeys? The answer is to make the interface less obtrusive - I can change volume and station without my hands leaving the steering wheel now. Something like Siri/Google voice controls might eventually do more to save lives than a blanket ban that people just ignore because they feel it too intrusive (we have such a ban on using a phone here in the UK, yet I frequently see bad driving from people who turn out to be using a mobile).
Indeed, this means the more loyal customers who've already purchased many of these apps will be disproportionately rewarded (unless it's just $100 to spend on whatever they please). Either way the company is acting like it's a given that this is more than adequate compensation - for businesses who rely on the service it could well be a drop in the ocean of their losses for the period the service was down.
The sheer number of people would be an issue with current resources, but people living long enough to deal with the consequences of their wasteful lifestyles might not be a bad thing. It's one thing to ruin the planet for your great-grandchildren, it's another entirely when you realise you'll still only be middle aged by the time they go to college.
Stupid as it sounds, I wouldn't be surprised at all to learn they had something in their terms and conditions to that affect so that they can't be accused of aiding troublemakers.
Of course, if you're going along to a protest where you think there's the possibility you might run into trouble with the police, it would be prudent to memorise them, or even simpler, write them down (on a bit of paper, on your arm, wherever) beforehand - the fact that GP isn't in that specific situation doesn't negate his point. If you're going to be forward thinking enough to install an app to alert people you got arrested, you should also be able to take 30 seconds to scribble down your important phone numbers.
Of course, "Help I'm being arrested" in that case might actually mean "Sorry, I had to go pee and didn't think what would happen if I needed both hands for something else". I wonder if a bluetooth headset and an app that listens for a pre-defined keyword might be a more robust solution, it would kill the battery though. Having said that, I really don't see a point in a "Help I'm being arrested, text my lawer" app, you generally get the option to call them direct anyway, and if the police are denying you that most basic of rights they're already in very murky territory, what's to stop them just denying they have you in custody at all? It seems to me an app that, when you hit the emergency button, starts streaming live video/audio to half a dozen secure servers just in case the police get a bit feisty would be far more useful.
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They've said the source will be released once the first phone hits the market. That's forthcoming enough. Sure, they could give an exact date if they wanted to be more forthcoming, but unless they're guaranteed to hit it, it's just opening themselves up to exactly this type of criticism if they slip (even if they slip for reasons beyond their control). They've been plenty forthcoming enough to answer the unfounded fears expressed in TFA, that's all that really matters.
The code is in the SDK for testing purposes. In fact it's probably a strategy to ensure quality that they are holding off on the full release, so that app developers have time to test and update their products where necessary before a new OS is released (because you know the second it is, modders and third party phone vendors will all be rushing to be amongst the first to bring ICS to devices - with no testing period you'll have a lot of disgruntled customers).
Yes, and it's pretty common for the SDK to be released ahead of the product, so that developers can ensure applications that worked on the previous version still work, or develop pathces where required. There's nothing unusual whatsoever in seeing an SDK released before the official product - even developers are used to this model.
Given that Google said already the code will be released when the first device that uses it is released (which is some weeks away), even that's not necessary right now - right now I'd say just give them until the point where they've already promised the code before the wild speculation begins.
Ditto - this is all based on Honeycomb, but the reason for that not being opened up was explained (they were afraid manufacturers would run with it on mobiles even though it wasn't optimised for mobiles, giving the public a false bad impression of the OS). If Google wanted to move to closed source, it's already done the hard work breaking that news with Honeycomb, they'd just stick with that line. What they wouldn't do is announce ICS is going to be open, get everyone excited, then pull the rug a second time - that would drag their public image with many people through the dirt. For that reason, and the comments from JBQ, I find it massively unlikely they're planning to keep ICS closed, but conspiracy theorists will be conspiracy theorists.
And to clarify, I meant phone vendor - I know they don't "manufacture" the phones per se.
Google (aside from the Nexus, which is more of a showcase device) isn't a phone manufacturer. Why would they care what clone manufacturers in China are doing? If anything, keeping the source open should encourage more of these clone manufacturers to adopt Android, which in turn will increase their market share (and the number of people shopping in the Android market).
There's a difference between keeping up pressure on companies to do the right thing (good) and blatant overreactions that harm the company's image without justification (bad). Claiming that the fact that the source isn't available the second the OS is released, despite assurances from the company that it would be open source and nothing official to the contrary, somehow means the end of all open source from said company forever is just insanity level overreaction. Let's give them a chance to do the right thing before we all don the Guy Fawkes masks and march on Google HQ.
It seems like design students with incredible vision are clearly more common than you seem to think. Taking a single phone and a single tablet out of context from a manufacturer who has probably produced hundreds of variant designs over the years seems like a desperate ploy to win an argument. You could equally argue this shows Samsung's incredible diversity compared to Apple's "come up with one design and slightly tweak it ad infinitum" approach, but then that would be just as blind as your skewed point of view. The truth is its in the customer's interest for there to be good competition on the technical front combined with simplification on the design front. If one particular manufacturer is allowed to "own" simplified design, that's bad news for everyone. This isn't about "my favourite tech company is better than yours" it's about "this stupid law is holding back advances at what could otherwise be an amazing point in the history of technology".
I suspect that's intentional - the troll images pointedly show only devices that support a very narrow, specific point. This goes the opposite way in suggesting that there's actually far more diversity since iPad, but it does so as a tongue in cheek exercise. In reality there was diversity before AND after, and a lot of devices do end up looking the same or very similar, not because everyone is stealing each other's ideas, but because there's only so much you can do with the technology and still have it usable. If you said to a hundred designers here's your brief, you have a big, touch sensitive screen, maybe one to five hard buttons, it needs to weigh this much, here's the footprint for the internal hardware and a user has to be able to comfortable hold and use it for prolonged periods, even in a world where the iPad didn't exist I'd not be surprised to see 20-25% of the designs come back very similar to iPad and maybe another 30-40% looking vaguely similar.
The best we can hope for is that enough companies get bitten enough times that they eventually turn some of their capital towards lobbying for less stupid IP laws. The big problem with that is that the big companies can afford a few losses and IP still overall works in their favour to keep the little guys off the playing field.
I did read - and I have no citation for this nor do I know the validity of the claim so I add it here as purely anecdotal - that Samsung supply certain components to Apple (the two obviously also have a lot of cross licensing deals for various bits of tech). If that is true, it might explain their reluctance to go to court until it started hurting their bottom line sufficiently to justify risking their existing contracts with Apple - does anyone have any more information on this?
The key thing is having a passenger who is aware of the situation outside the car. A passenger can keep you alert and active on a long, tedious drive, and can therefore be a good thing. In reality if you are navigating tricky obstacles, most passengers will shut up until you're out of danger, not throw maths questions at you :) That's why the phone is worse - the person on the other end has no way to read the driving situation and adjust their level of engagement accordingly.
My guess is that it's as bad or worse, it just doesn't show up as much in the statistics because, well, how do you prove someone was texting when they crashed unless they admit it after the fact? It's much easier to pull their call logs and show their phone was actively engaged in a call at the time, with texts it's much harder to prove unless you can show a pattern of behaviour over the preceeding minutes, and even then it's not nearly as conclusive.
Not to mention in rural Nebraska it should be even easier to find a spot to pull over if you need to make/take a call than it is in the middle of a busy metropolis, so there's even less excuse.
True, but given the number of people I see still using their mobiles while driving in a country that has a blanket ban, I'd argue that new laws aren't doing a great job either. If someone is driving dangerously, there's laws to cover that already. Do we really need a new law for each new piece of technology that comes along when they all really equate to the same thing? I could understand if I saw officers in unmarked police cars constantly pulling people over for driving while on the phone that it might act as a deterrent for the times when people think they won't get caught, but in reality I've never witnessed this, it feels more like another way for the government to collect cash or for police forces to inflate their crime solving statistics.
The only prohibition that's really needed is against driving dangerously. The real issue is enforcement - typically most people don't drive dangerously while they're around police cars, so in order to minimise bad driving we look at the most common factors that cause them. I think the thing that's likely to change this in the next ten years or so is going to be cameras fitted to cars. We're at the point now where we can fit cheap, high quality cars facing in all directions to cars for a cost that's cheap enough that an incentive in the form of cheaper insurance (since it's easier to prove you are not at fault) would be enough to make it widespread. Suddenly bad drivers aren't just worried about the police spotting them, anyone can record their bad behaviour and report it later. That might lead to more convictions for people driving badly and less need for blanket prohibitions that affect good drivers (eating an apple while driving, for instance, isn't inherently dangerous).
Same story here in the UK. Over here it's punishable by a fine, which kind of makes people think it's okay to do, especially when they might only get fined one out of every hundred times (probably not even that, I've never personally witnessed a police car pull someone over for talking on their phone). I can't help thinking that if it was a criminal conviction it might be more of a deterrent than a cash boosting exercise.
That's true, but you can only go so far before it potentially becomes counter-productive. Fiddling with radios, for instance, might lead to accidents. The obvious answer is to ban radios, but how many lives does the radio save by keeping people awake and alert on long, boring road journeys? The answer is to make the interface less obtrusive - I can change volume and station without my hands leaving the steering wheel now. Something like Siri/Google voice controls might eventually do more to save lives than a blanket ban that people just ignore because they feel it too intrusive (we have such a ban on using a phone here in the UK, yet I frequently see bad driving from people who turn out to be using a mobile).
Indeed, this means the more loyal customers who've already purchased many of these apps will be disproportionately rewarded (unless it's just $100 to spend on whatever they please). Either way the company is acting like it's a given that this is more than adequate compensation - for businesses who rely on the service it could well be a drop in the ocean of their losses for the period the service was down.
And I'm sure the sales bans on Samsung products in various regions pending legal decisions is having no affect whatsoever on their bottom line...
The sheer number of people would be an issue with current resources, but people living long enough to deal with the consequences of their wasteful lifestyles might not be a bad thing. It's one thing to ruin the planet for your great-grandchildren, it's another entirely when you realise you'll still only be middle aged by the time they go to college.
Stupid as it sounds, I wouldn't be surprised at all to learn they had something in their terms and conditions to that affect so that they can't be accused of aiding troublemakers.
Of course, if you're going along to a protest where you think there's the possibility you might run into trouble with the police, it would be prudent to memorise them, or even simpler, write them down (on a bit of paper, on your arm, wherever) beforehand - the fact that GP isn't in that specific situation doesn't negate his point. If you're going to be forward thinking enough to install an app to alert people you got arrested, you should also be able to take 30 seconds to scribble down your important phone numbers.
Of course, "Help I'm being arrested" in that case might actually mean "Sorry, I had to go pee and didn't think what would happen if I needed both hands for something else". I wonder if a bluetooth headset and an app that listens for a pre-defined keyword might be a more robust solution, it would kill the battery though. Having said that, I really don't see a point in a "Help I'm being arrested, text my lawer" app, you generally get the option to call them direct anyway, and if the police are denying you that most basic of rights they're already in very murky territory, what's to stop them just denying they have you in custody at all? It seems to me an app that, when you hit the emergency button, starts streaming live video/audio to half a dozen secure servers just in case the police get a bit feisty would be far more useful.