You're seeing one tiny instance of them using it, they're both eating (so their hands are busy) while watching a message that's being relayed. If you saw an iPad playing a video clip would you jump to the same conclusion that that is all it can do? Besides, the patent is merely a design for an "electronic device" - the patent mentions nothing about the functionality of a tablet. A hand held television or video screen would qualify as an "electronic device".
Indeed, we're already moving in the direction of people having a "profile" of themselves that exists in the cloud and that they can access from any device. If we could solve the issues of device cost and bandwidth (coupled with some convenient way of tying together the disparate aspects of our online profile) a lot of people would largely already be living in that world. Remove the further barrier to access that is installed applications (as opposed to some browser-based app with cloud-based data) and most of our electronic devices could trivially be interchangable.
It's a design patent. Star Trek was a fictional show but the designs were real, they were all designed by someone and they all pre-date the patent. You wouldn't use Star Trek as a reason to prevent a patent on a real life replicator or warp drive, but the designs on the show can definitely stand as prior art to the patents on designs for tech gear.
Thank goodness that they pointed that out, otherwise Apple could sue to prevent Samsung lawyers from actually coming to court, given that they would be infringing on Apple's patent on the human form.
Since when were lawyers considered an example of a human form? Humanoid, maybe...
And yet plenty of people obtain pilot licenses every year, even when they have no intention of using them commercially. You could also argue that nobody would want to be in a car driving amongst idiots in charge of extremely heavy, powerful machines at speeds approaching 100MPH, but again millions of people do exactly this every day. If you could create a car that looked like and could be used as a car that also flew (not some gawky airplane with the ability to fold its wings so it can pootle about at 30MPH), you could bet your life there'd be a market, even if they were ridiculously expensive and ended up as the playthings of millionaires, that's still as valid a market as there is for supercars. The reason we don't have flying cars is nothing to do with the potential customers and everything to do with how hard it is technologically.
What the hell are you talking about? Nexus isn't a root unlock exploit, it's a handset sold with vanilla Android with no carrier/handset manufacturer extras. And my Android experience matches GP's here in the UK - you can easily track down a handset, even on contract, without lots of carrier crap installed if you shop around. Independent handset retailers like Carphone Warehouse tend to provide exactly this. No rooting or unlocking required, full warranty included.
I can change or even uninstall the default browser and package manage on my OS. This thread is about stuff the vendor installs and forces the user to use - to say Apple don't do that is wrong, even if they do have a slick user interface. I'm not saying it's necessarily bad for the user in the majority of cases, but it's still exactly the same thing.
By definition anything I don't like but can't uninstall is "non-removable crapware". To suggest Windows and iOS don't have this because most people are happy to put up with the pre-installed apps is just blinkered, it's exactly the same as carrier lockdown on Android and it's universally bad for the end user, the only reason you hear more complaints from Android users is because they probably bought the phone expecting more openness, it doesn't mean other users wouldn't like this too. I wish we could focus less on Android vs iOS vs WP7 vs whatever and more on carriers vs customers, because that's the real issue.
So price isn't a factor in how good something is? I'm sorry, but for most people living in the real world, value for money is certainly one of the key factors in determining how good a product is. Almost all product rating systems factor in price and mark products down if they're considered overpriced.
The argument is still flawed. People aren't randomly picking phones, meaning the OS with the most handsets gets the most hits, they're making choices based on styling, price, usability, past experience, etc.
Unless I'm missing something, this is exactly how my Android works, so if it's a new (or at least increasing) development on Android phones what's to stop MS doing it at some point too? At the moment they're fighting for market share, if carriers say they want this shovelware in order to promote the OS I can't see MS worrying too much about the feelings of users. Having said that, I have no pre-installed crap on my Android apart from the basics (market place, maps, a few utility apps like calculators and the like), I can install and uninstall any of it and the only carrier branding I have is a single screen when I restart the phone (which I do maybe once every 6-8 weeks). I could have ditched even that level of branding by buying the same contract and phone from a different retailer.
Chances are they're all hooked into your various online accounts too. I'm pretty good at verifying anything I'm going to install on my phone, but sooner or later users will get caught out by a security flaw in a badly coded piece of shoverware that they never even realised was installed. Less of an issue when phones basically made calls and sent text messages, much more of an issue when they're hooked up to online retailers/banking sites.
I think most people would be happy with that state of affairs. The problem is when you start using the bible to justify laws, or telling others how they should live their lives, or as the basis for wars and murder. I don't think anyone ever killed someone over an interpretation of one of Aesop's fables. I'd be more than happy to take this as a collection of guidelines for how we live our own lives and each person takes away from it what they will, but the second we get into grouping together and using it as the basis for how others should live theirs, it becomes a dangerous tool.
I was wondering the same. The brief blurb on the page talks about the possible use in prosthetics, but unless you have a control mechanism capable of making use of the full range of something like this, you essentially just have a very expensive plastic arm. It's great that the technology is there when it's needed, I just don't think that will be for a while yet.
There are already accusations that energy companies are doing the same in the West already (massaging profits so customers don't balk when record profits are announced alongside record price rises).
What's the minimum requirement here? Is it the 20% you hypothesize or would it be the same if it was only 10%, or 1%, or a handful of people? At some point you have to weight the good of the majority against protecting the minority and make a call.
2. The dreaded low internal memory issue. Seriously, who thought (and still thinks) that giving the users access to 128MB of internal storage would be enough? Sure, we can shove in an SD card, but if most useful apps refuse to move over, you're basically screwed. I've currently got 11MB free on the internal memory and over 20GB free on my microSD. This is bonkers. Hopefully, a Google phone would have at least 8GB internal and support microSD.
This is my single biggest bugbear with my HTC Desire. For everything else I've been really impressed with the phone, but the fact that I can only install a handful of apps (even ones that install to the SD card seem to want to leave some data on the phone, and some of the big ones, even Google's own, just don't give you the option) is a frustration. It means as apps come into and out of my circulation of usage I'm having to constantly juggle which ones are installed.
It's interesting that Google already tried to do their own handset, albeit through a third party. Maybe there were areas that they felt could be improved if they brought all of that process in house and this is an opportunity to do that, in which case yes, option 1 might be viable. Of course, the danger is if they do too good a job, as GP said, the other companies might feel they can't compete (or maybe that Google has an unfair advantage) and look for an incentive to jump ship. If they don't do a good enough job, they'll be stuck with a pretty average handset manufacturing process which doesn't seem to be where they want to be.
I agree - it's interesting that all the talk is always about what they're going to do to shut down Anonymous/Lulsec and nothing about what they're going to do to beef up security so that when a genuine threat appears they can't just drive a truck through the security loopholes. I'm not saying Anon is right, but removing them from the equation alone isn't going to fix the problem.
Not to mention if they did keep manufacturing in the west, it wouldn't stop the other countries doing it cheaper, it's just that they'd be producing (and people would be buying) cheap knock-offs instead of cheap originals.
Slashdot Mirror
Here you go...
You're seeing one tiny instance of them using it, they're both eating (so their hands are busy) while watching a message that's being relayed. If you saw an iPad playing a video clip would you jump to the same conclusion that that is all it can do? Besides, the patent is merely a design for an "electronic device" - the patent mentions nothing about the functionality of a tablet. A hand held television or video screen would qualify as an "electronic device".
Indeed, we're already moving in the direction of people having a "profile" of themselves that exists in the cloud and that they can access from any device. If we could solve the issues of device cost and bandwidth (coupled with some convenient way of tying together the disparate aspects of our online profile) a lot of people would largely already be living in that world. Remove the further barrier to access that is installed applications (as opposed to some browser-based app with cloud-based data) and most of our electronic devices could trivially be interchangable.
It's a design patent. Star Trek was a fictional show but the designs were real, they were all designed by someone and they all pre-date the patent. You wouldn't use Star Trek as a reason to prevent a patent on a real life replicator or warp drive, but the designs on the show can definitely stand as prior art to the patents on designs for tech gear.
Thank goodness that they pointed that out, otherwise Apple could sue to prevent Samsung lawyers from actually coming to court, given that they would be infringing on Apple's patent on the human form.
Since when were lawyers considered an example of a human form? Humanoid, maybe...
And yet plenty of people obtain pilot licenses every year, even when they have no intention of using them commercially. You could also argue that nobody would want to be in a car driving amongst idiots in charge of extremely heavy, powerful machines at speeds approaching 100MPH, but again millions of people do exactly this every day. If you could create a car that looked like and could be used as a car that also flew (not some gawky airplane with the ability to fold its wings so it can pootle about at 30MPH), you could bet your life there'd be a market, even if they were ridiculously expensive and ended up as the playthings of millionaires, that's still as valid a market as there is for supercars. The reason we don't have flying cars is nothing to do with the potential customers and everything to do with how hard it is technologically.
Yeah, I've heard this before too. Seems like a variation on this story.
What the hell are you talking about? Nexus isn't a root unlock exploit, it's a handset sold with vanilla Android with no carrier/handset manufacturer extras. And my Android experience matches GP's here in the UK - you can easily track down a handset, even on contract, without lots of carrier crap installed if you shop around. Independent handset retailers like Carphone Warehouse tend to provide exactly this. No rooting or unlocking required, full warranty included.
I can change or even uninstall the default browser and package manage on my OS. This thread is about stuff the vendor installs and forces the user to use - to say Apple don't do that is wrong, even if they do have a slick user interface. I'm not saying it's necessarily bad for the user in the majority of cases, but it's still exactly the same thing.
By definition anything I don't like but can't uninstall is "non-removable crapware". To suggest Windows and iOS don't have this because most people are happy to put up with the pre-installed apps is just blinkered, it's exactly the same as carrier lockdown on Android and it's universally bad for the end user, the only reason you hear more complaints from Android users is because they probably bought the phone expecting more openness, it doesn't mean other users wouldn't like this too. I wish we could focus less on Android vs iOS vs WP7 vs whatever and more on carriers vs customers, because that's the real issue.
So price isn't a factor in how good something is? I'm sorry, but for most people living in the real world, value for money is certainly one of the key factors in determining how good a product is. Almost all product rating systems factor in price and mark products down if they're considered overpriced.
The argument is still flawed. People aren't randomly picking phones, meaning the OS with the most handsets gets the most hits, they're making choices based on styling, price, usability, past experience, etc.
Unless I'm missing something, this is exactly how my Android works, so if it's a new (or at least increasing) development on Android phones what's to stop MS doing it at some point too? At the moment they're fighting for market share, if carriers say they want this shovelware in order to promote the OS I can't see MS worrying too much about the feelings of users. Having said that, I have no pre-installed crap on my Android apart from the basics (market place, maps, a few utility apps like calculators and the like), I can install and uninstall any of it and the only carrier branding I have is a single screen when I restart the phone (which I do maybe once every 6-8 weeks). I could have ditched even that level of branding by buying the same contract and phone from a different retailer.
Chances are they're all hooked into your various online accounts too. I'm pretty good at verifying anything I'm going to install on my phone, but sooner or later users will get caught out by a security flaw in a badly coded piece of shoverware that they never even realised was installed. Less of an issue when phones basically made calls and sent text messages, much more of an issue when they're hooked up to online retailers/banking sites.
Indeed, always remember to check all research/marketing claims against the chart.
We already tried that.
I think most people would be happy with that state of affairs. The problem is when you start using the bible to justify laws, or telling others how they should live their lives, or as the basis for wars and murder. I don't think anyone ever killed someone over an interpretation of one of Aesop's fables. I'd be more than happy to take this as a collection of guidelines for how we live our own lives and each person takes away from it what they will, but the second we get into grouping together and using it as the basis for how others should live theirs, it becomes a dangerous tool.
I was wondering the same. The brief blurb on the page talks about the possible use in prosthetics, but unless you have a control mechanism capable of making use of the full range of something like this, you essentially just have a very expensive plastic arm. It's great that the technology is there when it's needed, I just don't think that will be for a while yet.
There are already accusations that energy companies are doing the same in the West already (massaging profits so customers don't balk when record profits are announced alongside record price rises).
What's the minimum requirement here? Is it the 20% you hypothesize or would it be the same if it was only 10%, or 1%, or a handful of people? At some point you have to weight the good of the majority against protecting the minority and make a call.
2. The dreaded low internal memory issue. Seriously, who thought (and still thinks) that giving the users access to 128MB of internal storage would be enough? Sure, we can shove in an SD card, but if most useful apps refuse to move over, you're basically screwed. I've currently got 11MB free on the internal memory and over 20GB free on my microSD. This is bonkers. Hopefully, a Google phone would have at least 8GB internal and support microSD.
This is my single biggest bugbear with my HTC Desire. For everything else I've been really impressed with the phone, but the fact that I can only install a handful of apps (even ones that install to the SD card seem to want to leave some data on the phone, and some of the big ones, even Google's own, just don't give you the option) is a frustration. It means as apps come into and out of my circulation of usage I'm having to constantly juggle which ones are installed.
It's interesting that Google already tried to do their own handset, albeit through a third party. Maybe there were areas that they felt could be improved if they brought all of that process in house and this is an opportunity to do that, in which case yes, option 1 might be viable. Of course, the danger is if they do too good a job, as GP said, the other companies might feel they can't compete (or maybe that Google has an unfair advantage) and look for an incentive to jump ship. If they don't do a good enough job, they'll be stuck with a pretty average handset manufacturing process which doesn't seem to be where they want to be.
I agree - it's interesting that all the talk is always about what they're going to do to shut down Anonymous/Lulsec and nothing about what they're going to do to beef up security so that when a genuine threat appears they can't just drive a truck through the security loopholes. I'm not saying Anon is right, but removing them from the equation alone isn't going to fix the problem.
Not to mention if they did keep manufacturing in the west, it wouldn't stop the other countries doing it cheaper, it's just that they'd be producing (and people would be buying) cheap knock-offs instead of cheap originals.
United Kingdom: Riot alert
Wouldn't work. The aftermath of our football matches would set off too many false positives.