Posts by Michael C

Tape backup could be binned soon

notes

actually, disk can survive a larger shock than tape. metal enclosure might get dented, but when not spinning disks are good to 300Gs. Tapes crack easy, but more importantly spindle shift is a huge issue is the tape lands flat side down. You;re dead on with the environmental weaknesses of tape though.

With disk you get 2 systems, not 1. Tape you archive to and then remove. Disk can be both an online AND offline recovery system. Backups run to disk, are cataloged, deduped, and compressed, but STAY on the internal array of the DR system. This is low tier cheap storage, a simple collection of JBODs. Backups can be rsynced from there to removable slots, and those can even be a RAID 5 disk set. Each job is a file, not a virtual tape, so the number of disks in the archive only needs to be as large as the total of compressed storage, no complexity. The backup array is simple flat storage. Client backups are stored in sort-of TAR balls, but the contents of them is managed by a database engine and deduplication algorithms. It;s a mater/inremental set, not a master and tons of differentials, even though a differential is technically performed each day. The DB knows the time indexes and job numbers, so even though you only need 2 files to completely restore a server, you can also do point-in-time recovery to any step inbetween the master and last backup. Advanced real-time disk syncing is also possible, increasing the snapshot frequency. Yes, all the magic is in the engine, but the data ion disk is small, simple, and could use portable DB exports to easily be imported into a clean system later in a site disaster (or synced to a WAN based mirror system). Also, a disk array can parallel write as many backups as you have IOPS to spare, where a tape system is limited by the number of read/write head drives. (and those heads are expensive!)

A Company called Unitredns has been doing this for years... Their stuff is amazing!

When you start talking about massive, petabyte, datasets, we're not talking backup anymore, we're talking about replication, journaling, and archive. You don't do master backups of datasets that big, you can't. But, for any systems with sub 10TB or so volumes, nightly and continuous backups are still an option. Anyone with less than 100TB of data could use a small array of appliances and get amazing backup performance and near-instant file/folder recovery and file/folder history search.

Major US carriers sign up to sell Apple iPad

Verizon

So, they'll carry the pad, but they won't be able to sell you 3G service on it, lol... They're bundling a MiFi. Deal is if you already have a mifi you can use it, if you don;t, they'll sell you one for the price difference between the WiFi and 3G versions of the ipad. Then, you pay $20 for 1GB per month no-contract, or sign a commitment and pay a ridiculous sum to get more. AT&T offers a $15 plan for 250MB and 2GB for only $5 more than Verizon, requires no secondary device, and neither have a contract. Also, if you have an AT&T plan at all, you get access to all AT&Ts hotspots. No go on Verizon.

oh, and Verizon is selling the pad at $1 higher than MSRP.

So, if you are on Verizon and already have a MiFi, you can pay Verizon a dollar extra than retail and use it as you otherwise would, or you can pay higher than AT&T prices and have to carry a MiFi if you want 3G on the go (though you would get the benefit of using that with your PC too, 1GB is a very small plan and not much use, especially if the iPad is already getting your e-mail and can sync and send documents without the PC needing it's own 3G connection). Or, you could just go buy one from any other retailer and simply use the iPad to sign up for an AT&T month-by-month account, since that has NO EFFECT on the fact your phone might be on Verizon... Who the hell would pay more for less just to use Verizon's slower 3G system? (oh, yea, the iPad is HSDPA compliant, so if you have that in your area from AT&T, which everyone will inside 6-9 months and a lot of us already do, then the $5 more for double the data AT&T offer is also 4x as fast... Jailbreak the pad and use it to connect your PC...

This is a total Verizon fail. They had an opportunity to show Apple they could make some interest, but in the end, their evil pricing and refusal to budge on policy bites its customers. If I was still on Verizon, I;d go to AT&T to buy this on nothing more than Verizon priced it up a buck, ad had the nerve to not offer the same data plan to existing MiFi people.

Foxconn warns phones prices will rise

rights granted

See Chinese labor laws, apple (and other) supplier policy guidelines, audit reports from apple visits to FoxCon facilities, and more. Foxconn workers are held to some of the regions toughest requirements, in fact, they have better labor protections than us currently (aside from some civil lawsuit benefits for "emotional abuse" we file that I honestly think are complete BS, shit like lawsuits over perfume!). Unions enforce some additional regulations on some businesses, but very little of that is actually law here.

My wife for example teaches 3rd grade. Starting pay for her position is only 22.6K a year. She works 6:50 AM to 3:15PM manditory. She has to watch the kids during lunch, and maybe if she's lucky 2 times a week actually gets to eat her own mean. In order to "further education" she no longer gets working hours during the day at all for breaks, paperwork processing, and more. It's been replaced with additional classroom time, manditory processes, or manditory meetings. So, 6:50 - 3:15 PM, no breaks, is an 8h40m day. Federal law requires he to get a minimum 30 minutes of "duty free" break time every day, but she does not get that.

Now, because she no longer gets the hour of desk time with no kids she used to, she has to bring her work home. Without access to in-school systems remotely, that means doing a lot of work at home one night, then staying late the next to key everything into the systems there. most days she does not leave the building until after 4PM, and works 1-2 hours each night at home in addition. (grading papers for 72 different children is a lot of work, there are no TAs anymore). so, 42.5 base hours, plus an additional average 2 per night is 52.5 hours a week just to do her job requirements.

1 night a week and 2 nights a month she has mandatory meetings for committees. Additional job duties some teachers are made to do by election (not an option, they can not turn down an election, and often the principal is the only one with a vote) yet they get no additional pay for it. This is her 6th year in a row on a team she's only supposed to be on once every 4 years. That's another 2.5 hours average per week onto her dole, so now she's at 55 hours.

Then she has office hours. ANY time a parent requests, with or without notice, she has to have a parent conference. This happens about 3 times a week, about 15-30 minutes time each. So lets call that an hour. There's also open houses 4 times a year, assemblies or some other after school function once a month, averaging about 2 extra hours per month. So, we're averaging 56.5 hours a week now.

And then there's state required education to maintain her teaching certificate, or district level trainings on new methods or teaching tools. She takes 3 credit hours of college level classes per year (none of which count towards a masters or doctorate) minimum, and receives no additional compensation for that time. Sometimes she has to pay out of pocket for the class and only gets reimbursed if the gets a 3.0 or higher, and reimbursement might take 2-3 months after she finishes the class. District trainings that involve weekend days get a per-diem of $125 per day, but classroom training towards certification gets nothing.

During the summer, there's typically a slew of scheduled district training days (average 8-10 a year over the 8 week break). This essentially prevents her from working any reasonable job during this time period, not to mention no one wants a part time worker for only 8 weeks.

On top, she's furlowed 2 days this year, and for 3 years in a row there's not only been no raise, but they did not increase the step salary scale either, so she's actually making less now than the was 3 years ago, and she's taxed more for it, and pays higher insurance costs, and has higher deductibles and less coverage.

9 years teaching and she still has near 20K in college debt too. All incentive programs offered to her to enter college were terminated before she graduated, so she never got a penny in education assistance, and 5 years ago the state stopped paying for national teacher certification status as well.

at 57 hours per week, starting teacher pay in this state is (considering she works 44 weeks, not 52.5) is still only $8.90 per hour. If overtime had to be factored in by law (as it should) a starting teacher could technically be below minimum wage. I have not included the time she often spends on weekends and all summer designing lesson plans and classroom material. This is just her "required" input of labor. She actually works much more, because shes dedicated to these kids. Would you manage a classroom of 20+ kids for 9 hours and additional work totaling near 60 hours a week for $9 per hour???

And you think we have labor rights?

misinformed

1: apple encouraged those wage increases, and is the single strongest proponent of worker conditions there, and the only company that has more than 1 audit of working conditions per year.

2: Apple understands the cost increases, expected them, and will not be passing them to consumers (we're talking a few dollars tops per finished device, not tens of dollars). Some other companies will feel the bite, especially on lower end products, or where dozens of different models are manufactured at much slimmer profit margins.

3: The number of suicides per capita and per the same demographic slice of population at foxconn is 3 times LOWER than the same group of people here in the USA. Also, per 400,000 workers, there are more murders, more cases of sexual abuse, and more physical confrontations per capita here in the USA. Simple googling can find you these numbers. When you hear 10 people killed themselves in a year at a factory, that sounds crazy big, because in your mind you're thinking 5-10K people work there. You;re wrong on this count. 10 people is a small number. (yes, it should be fewer, and with some money they could shave 1 or 2 off that, and with a lot more another 1 or 2, but eliminating it is not possible, some people are just gonna give up no matter how close you watch).

4: Any other option is worse, and the cost of relocating manufacturing to save a few bucks will be outweighed by the costs of actually doing so, and put added strains on already tested product manufacturing capacity, and cause product quality issues.

5: other than some awesome health benefits, and some unusual pay scales, factory workers in the USA are more likely to work in a location of higher risk and greater chemical exposure than the general employee of FoxConn. Have you actually be in some American factories, especially textile or food manufacturing? I have... Its not pretty here either.

6: if it was so bad there, why would people get work visas and come half way across china just for the chance to work a 2-3 year contract and then go home? Their hiring lines are literally DAYS long.

7: Most of the emotional abuse heard about is our failure of understanding of general Chinese culture. If you saw what went on inside the walls of most Asian homes, you'd have child services there in a minute flat screaming child abuse, but no, that's their culture, and its actually encouraged. Its their tradition.

no rights???

China actually has some pretty tough laws on worker rights. They're technically stricter than ours. Pay rate is lower, but so is cost of living by a larger difference. The "sucky conditions" apply to a limited number of manufacturing floors, none of them apple, but overall considering 300,000 people LIVE inside the factory (literally in dorms), and that is looks nicer and better built than many of the malls and airports here in the USA, it really isn't that bad. Cultural differences taken into account, those people actually fight over each other to get a job there. It's a huge step up from the alternative.

India was worse than china 25 years ago. Once money flowed through their economy, cost of living and access to things went up, and then did wages, and then services, and then wages, and now they live on par with some 1st and 2nd world major cities and have internet at home, and more, and can thus no longer compete, and companies are moving out in droves coming back to the US and the economy there is tumbling. China is trying hard to avoid that rapid inflation, as it killed tens of thousands of Indian citizens who could not move with the times and starved.

The pay scale is low, as is the quality of home living, but the pay they get pays the bills and food and then some. A person in china can actually live on $150 per month. Keep in mind, culturally, whole families live together, with some households having 5, 6, or more workers. That's their culture.

Apple and others place greater than required restrictions on employees working in their areas of the factory. Some companies only hold Foxconn to state required laws. Most don't audit to ensure that's happening. Apple does, and published that information openly. In a population of 300,000 people, and another 150,000 or so employees in addition to that, yes, if you look for abuse you will find it. Same is true here in the USA (where our own worker suicide rate is near TRIPLE that of Foxconn btw).

Jobsian fondle-slab in SEXY FILTHGRAM CRACKDOWN

old

this was files back in early 2008, is just a simple parental (and more importantly if you read the language for corporations) control, is completely options, and highly requested. It also does not yet exist in the product, and being 2 years old, probably won't.

Foxconn faces leaked report of worker abuse, violence

nope, wrong

Only for ages below 18 are their restraints on length of work. The only rules applied in the USA to length of labor for those over 18 are for truckers, hazmat workers, and people operating certain types of dangerous machinery, plus laws regarding minimum break time per hour worked (which apparently if you're a school teacher, your 30 minute "duty free" period for a meal break and other mandated by federal law break times do not apply). There are laws for overtime pay, but they don't apply to a lot of positions. For the few jobs that have maximum continuous shift regulations, most of them have either 10 or 14 hour shift caps, and all you have to do is rest 6 hours and you can start another 10-14 hour shift.

better link

http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/

This has been in place for a long time... Since 2008 apple has been PUBLISHING, willfully their on-site inspection reports (they were private before that). Many times in history apple has fired a company (yes, an entire supplier), or refused payment or shipment of merchandise for a supplier failing to meet not only local laws, but their own standards. Of all the companies FoxConn manufactures for, Apple is the SOLE company who conducts regular on-site inspections as well as "surprise" inspections. Until the suicide reports, it had been over 3 years since any other firm had an on-site labor condition inspection at all.

60 hour weeks are permitted. 10 hour shifts are permitted. Guess what, they are here in the USA too, and in FoxConn, they're required to be paid their premium rate for ANY hours over 40 in a week. Not all companies enforce such restrictions, and Chinese law does not either, and yet even with these conditions, people willfully leave employment at one company for a chance to work at foxconn.

In a population of 400,000 people, YES, you will find abuse if you go looking. Fact: the suicide rate among workers there is lower than the general US population suicide rate, lower than the specific demographic of US population on par with foxconn workers, and lower than the Chinese suicide rate for the same demographic as well.

As for dawn to dusk, I leave my house before sunrise and arrive home after sunset more days of the year than I do not. This is NORMAL if you commute more than an hour to get to work, or if you work in some fields. 6 different jobs I've had in my career I have averaged over 50 hours per week, and I can't count the number of 70+ hour weeks I've worked. At several points I've lived in crappy, leaky, dysfunctional, insect infested, apartments, or on a friend's graces not being able to afford a place of my own, while working here in the US well above minimum wage and doing said 50+ hour weeks. Everything is relative.

compare some facts

FoxConn's internal suicide rate is LOWER than that of the USA. They have half a million people there, so it's no small demographic. In fact, their suicide rate is lower still than the remainder of China.

As for pay, forget not their "life in FoxConn" actually includes a room, or at least a bed in a dorm. Comparative to other manufacturing firms, and to the base wage of the average person in China, FoxConn actually pays very well. They pay well in excess of required wages, and recently dramatically increased even that pay (as they have done periodically at the instance of foreign firms). People actually WANT to work for them, and the hiring lines can stretch on, literally, for days.

Compared to working in a US factory and US lifestyle, yea, it sucks. However, compared to the typical Chinaman's lifestyle and living conditions, its actually a damned good gig.

Philip Green discovers ugly truth of government incompetence

misinformation

Having worked closely with numerous government and major business IT departments and IS finance groups, I can tell you this information is completely out of context, and flatly misleading.

A company may pay $20 for a box of paper. Added to that is shipping, storage, and internal labor in the inventory and facilities groups. A Department needing that box of paper can't pay $20 for it, they have to cover the cost of the guy who goes and gets it, another guy who brings it over to their area, the costs of someone processing the paperwork to make that happen, and the costs of someone monitoring inventory (and the inventory management and asset tracking system) so that more $20 boxes of paper are appropriately ordered so as not to go out of stock. $50 for a box of paper is completely reasonable.

Even for a small office, if you're sending an office clerk over to Office Depot to buy a $20 box of paper, are you costing out just $20? No, you should be costing out their labor (and overhead) costs for the time it took, their expense report for the use of their car, charges associated with processing the corporate card payment (or employee reimbursement in payroll), and the cost of that paper (plus taxes). If it takes 60 minutes to get the job done, and they make $10 per hour, that $20 box of paper might have cost $40-50 easy once all the soft costs are factored.

In large firms, everything is charged somewhere. Overhead however is not charged as a line item, it's bundled into internal costs. When we internally sell a SQL server cluster to a department for use, we don't charge them just for the hardware and license, which might be $30K, we charge them for deployment, remediation, maintenance, monitoring, 3 years warranty, overhead and oversight of the teams deploying it, backup tape costs, SAN configuration, network configuration, switch port costs, and 3 years of electric and cooling costs, plus some for the facilities (rack space). Line items on our invoice might be $40K for the servers and licensing, but we charge somewhere between $90 and 150K for that sql cluster costed over 3-5 years depending on complexity, SLAs, and RTO/RPO/DR/BC needs.

We don't back-bill for monthly running costs, they're estimated. Line items for overhead and facilities have to be added in. One agency may also acquire good from an entire other division because they might not even have their own dedicated budgets, and that can add additional costs.

Apple trade marks 'There's an app for that'

not new

Love that all of you missed that this was filed A YEAR AGO...

Apple didn't file this to capitalize on some marketing hype, they filed this before marketing the phrase the first time. Given the negative attention the phrase is used in now, this is an added bonus that now their competitors can't use it in their own advertising (which Verizon already did).

Windows Phone 7 leaves operators on the hook

included apps

If they want apps pre-installed, they should be able to, but those apps should not be sourced direct or be a "part" of the OS or custom image, instead, they should simply be apps as otherwise distributed on the storefront. Each app independent of the others and the OS, just pre-installed. A search of Microsoft's store should reveal all of AT&T, Verizon, etc custom apps (at least the ones compatible with your hardware). Since the phones themselves are still carrier locked (or only sold by one anyway) then a app install by hardware ID should prevent others from using said apps. The rest, the app should have an authentication of some sort, meaning the app won't work an AT&T user installs a Verizon app.

As far as home screen customizations, fine, from a pre-install perspective, but I should be able to flash the phone to factory defaults removing those, or reload from a backup image to restore them.

They can include what they want, but none of it should be mandatory. Everything is an app or a custom tile. end of line.

If they want to be able to make money off services, they can still sell music by reference through apps, make ad revenue, or actually SELL some apps as optional add-ons.

Windows Phone 7: 'Different, delightful'... and unfinished

More unfinished than discussed

Major missing features:

- cut/paste (and its complete BS that this was "overlooked" after all the noise made over Apple's lack of it initially).

- Tiles not customizable by devs

- Video output

- Mac Support

- no side loading apps

- no file system

- no browser silver light support (only in apps)

- no cross-app data sharing

- no streaming (from PCs in the home)

- no SD cards

- can install other browsers (eventually) but default MUST be IE (can not be changed, wow, the EU is going to CRUCIFY them over that one....)

- no iTunes support (some may call that a plus, but millions of people use it. And YES, there ARE phones that support iTunes other than Apple, they just don;t "integrate" with iTunes, and rely on APIs to access the XML database and file system directly, which IS allowed by Apple, f*ck you Palm!).

Its far from finished.

Cisco Flip Mino HD 8GB video camera

8GB? srsly?

My non-HD camcorder has a 30GB HDD and I fill it before I can sync it often. At full res, non HD, it stores 9 hours. 8GB storing 2hours in HD? in what format and with what compression? My iPhone does HD too, and with 32GB of storage I can fill that thing up damned quick. No HD camcorder should have less than 32GB unless it has SDXC card slots in addition to internal storage.

Great, it's pocket sized. I'd rather have an iPhone in my pocket and a real camcorder in a bag. A pocket camcorder can at best be marginally better than a phone. A slightly less convenient hand camcorder not only has a far superior lens (and filter attachments supporting industry standard add-ons), but also has better storage, more features, better file format controls, and more. Very little of what I'd ever shoot with a shaky hand device is going to be much better one a flip than a phone. A handheld full camcorder is a bit more stable to start with, is easier to hold for longer shoots, has far better stability management in the lens, and is easily mounted to any tripod/mono-pod.

If it was $199, maybe, if it had 16-32GB of ram.... vs an iPod or any smartphone that shoots in HD? no.

Kindle users get Zorked out

Infocom was awesome

I bought a boxed set of their stuff way back in the day. Had the entire Zork saga on it (at least up to that point, which I think included the first one in a "GUI" as well as HHGttG and about 20 other games. All of them were copied to my PC HDD ages ago and forgotten in a folder migrated from system to system over the years. On nostalgia, i just remoted back home and dug for it. Even under Win7, the old Zork dos game did in fact launch! Of course, I have it on my iPhone (Adventure, anyway, a clone)...

Microsoft, Adobe merger? Yeah, right

Yea, non-starter

The government would simply never allow that merger to happen. I would not doubt after the rumor started someone at both companies got a ring from the FTC saying "Um, yea, joking right chums?"

Android phone auto reverts jailbreaks

right, except....

...that an iPhone gets regular updates and features added to the core OS, for free even.

On Android, some phone owners of "latest and greatest" devices released as little as 3 months ago have already been told their device is obsolete, and only critical security issues will be fixed, and they won;t be getting a Froyo upgrade, even though the device is FULLY CAPABLE of running the updated releases of Android (as jailbreakers proved). Jail breaking is the only way to get the new features and performance enhancements in any reasonable time (if at all), and be compatible with new apps coming out (since very few devs back code for more than -1 or -2 releases, and some only for the latest).

Even in iOS, if the device is not capable of a new feature, I still would get the other features it was capable of. 4.2 will install on all iPhones but the original, just most won't get all the perks, and they'll all have it on the same day. Android? When did Froyo come out? how many of you are STILL waiting for it? How many will wait forever?

Jail-breaking is practically required on Android, not for apps but for the OS enhancements. On iOS, its only necessary for the apps (most of which are no longer needed thanks to OS enhancements, unless you like to pirate stuff instead of paying $1 for it).

if its ion their network, its under their control.

During the contract term, yea, they might be able to enfoce significant controls (its still technically their device) but even after that, you stil have a ToS contract in place to get onto their network at all. They know damned well if you can jailbreak, you can tether without paying for it, can make certain VoIP calls without paying for them, can SMS without paying for it, can steal their partner's apps without paying for them, and more. Yes, JBing has options other than theft, but in general, just like Torrenting, theft is the #1 use by vast margins. Your want to be on their network, you have to acceopt their terms, same as driving a car on a street. (you can't just mod out the headlights for red lasers and go galavanting around, you have to follow the rules). The airwaves do not belong to you. Remove the transmitter, and I'm sure they'll let you feel free to mod however you like...

a few points

first off, it;s not the device, it;s the network. mod your device and you can cheat the system, skip paying for tethering, abuse unlimited plans, bypass SMS and other fee based services, steal ringtones, and more. These are ToS violations. Refusing to let you jailbreak makes this easy to police.

next, you can decorate your phone all you like, as you can your house. Wallpaper, tones, skins, cases. However, making structural modification to your house not only requires local permits, it requires permission from the lien holder as well. Want to take out a few walls while 90% financed and don;t think the mortgage company will question it, or stop you? think again. unless the investment you make is 100% cash and the value of the house will go up far more than the investment, and that can be backed up with lots of documentation, they WILL refuse it. Heck, i know people who've gotten nasty letters from a mortgage company just because they let the landscaping work slide a bit and it started to effect the home value.

Its your device, but its their network. One that's not only used for important calls between you and other people, but also emergency services. Its also based on a pricing model that assumes a minimum income per terabyte of data in the netowkr. They gave you unlimited data because a phone alone really can't use that much of it. Conenct a PC without paying extra and you screp up their math and cheat the system. Enough people do it (and on android it's proven rampant), and they start having backhaul issues and cost overruns, not to mention big bills from "partner" carriers when you;re on a shared tower.

subsidy

You didn;t read your contract. The phone is THEIRS until you meet the terms of the contract. Its subsidized. They CAN demand its return at any time, or demand you pay a termination fee plus additional prorated contract fees. Though the bulk of the handset belongs to you, parts of it (the chipset) are in fact property of the phone company, and must be surrendered on demand (functional or not). 99% of the time, they just charge you money as the termination fees are valued at more than the device. (and most people will just as well smash it then send it back broken in a box anyway).

Now, you are right however about their being 2 contracts. There's the contract for service, including the subsidy and your obligation to pay (and the penalties for not), BUT there's also a Terms of Use contract which is agreed to separately. Even if you bring youtr own phone (lets say a trac phone or other pay-as-you-go), they STILL have rights to tell you how and when you can use it, what software can and cannot be on it, and more, in order for you to be allowed on the network at all.

I'll take that bet

especially since apple has denounced such a practice in the past, and openly supports the jailbreak movements. Apple has routinely left a jailbreak unpatched through several iOS releases, only closing it when an actual security threat is presented associated with that hole. Yes, your warranty is void if you jailbreak, big deal. The warranty on the engine on my car is void, as is the warranty on the electronics, if i modify it in any way (including changing the car's CPU, installing a new radio, and more). That is not unusual.

Apple breaks jailbreaks in most releases because the jailbreakers use published security vulnerabilties that could be used for other attacks. NOT closing those would be an issue. Also, NOTHING forces you to upgrade the OS on iOS (unless you want the new features it released or to use software that uses a newly available API). On Android, OTA patching can litterally force you to upgrade, not only breaking jailbroken phones, but potentially also rendering purchased software useless or incompatible. At least with iPhones i can voluntarily roll back. On many android phones, if you do, they'll just push the update again. (some can be overridden, some can't, ad if they feel its necessary, they'll push a patch you can not stop. iPhones have no OTA patch system, they considder the existing of one a security issue that could be exploited, as they should).

just as i do with iOS

I can jailbreak iOS any time I want. I know full well that the next release will likely (but not allways) break that, but I can update to tyhat new release (for free) at my option, when it;s also been jailbrokebn. I have no want, nor do I care to bother.

Now, with android, they're taking away that choice. Without the "Draconian" controls of Apple, the ISPs and providers (who are pretty much openly evil, as opposed to apple which is only psycho-pathologically controlling), are doing business as usual. Their "open" platform is only open to the providers, NOT to you... Technically, Palm OS and Windows Mobile are "open" too, as anyone anywhere could release a compatible app, Palm and Microsoft only controlled who could and could not sell phones. Do you see any new phone vendors cropping up? nope, me either. So essentially, Android is just "free to those who can make phones" but is in fact, NOT open. (you can't get the source code yourself and build a phone). So, now their protecting what they didn;t pay for. aka, locking the devices down in order to increase revenue streams from partners and fee based data services and making it so you can't bypass those fees. Remember Verizon's BuyItNow? You got a camera phone but the only way to get pictures off of it was to pay Verizon $0.40 to "mail" it to yourself, and the big joke was the phone has e-mail support but could not access images from the e-mail app (by design). Same with loading ring tomes. It was firmware specifically designed to make you pay for things you used to be able to do free. I predicted this movement would hit android as soon as i heard about it.

Apple has the might to ensure that doesn't happen to their OS. Remember, the data plan was the first ever unlimited plan, visual voicemail (which required extensive new provider owned server infrastructure) and even included 200 SMS, ad push e-mail services, and a way to make your own ringtones for $99 each. Apple pushed HARD to get Cingular to agree to all that. The release presentation even said: "why MMS when you can e-mail for free." and Steve noted it took a lot of strong-arming to get cingular to even let that be the case. To GET the iPhone (and make sure Verizon didn't), Cingular bent over and sacrificed all their core revenue streams. (call minutes were their 4rd most profitable venture behind ringtones, mms, and sms). Google does not have the power to force providers (or manufacturers) to do this, so it was inevitable.

Comcast to notify subscribers with infected PCs

forget detection

just implement NAC security rules for anyone who does not opt to bypass them and have a basic PC security certification (something a step down from A+). Detection can be faulty, and false alarms are possible (though there should still be a simple bypass, like going to your account page, logging in, going to the "you've been quarantined" section, and hitting a "temporarily bypass quarantine" button, which should take like 5 minutes, and give you 24 hours to show your clean status or get turned back off). This should also be on a PC basis, not a network basis, and their router could do the heavy lifting blocking certain MACs and not others still letting clean PCs online even if some others are infected ir not in NAC compliance. The block should never be total, just a very short white list of sites to clean and secure and patch your PC.

not a valid scenario

A proper association is a city worker showing up and telling you that they detected large quantities of bleach coming from your home line connection at the street pipe, and they were cutting off your access from the home to the sewer until you fixed the issue. Or, the city water department noticing your water use went up 10 fold, and sees a big puddle in your back yard when they come to read the meter, and cuts you off.

I've experienced the latter (an automated sprinkler got stuck on while I was on a 2 week vacation, and ran my water bill from a normal $50 to over $300 before they caught it).

Go one step further

let people complete a PC competency test (say, something simple from CompTIA a few steps even lower in level that A+ focussing on basic internet safety) Have this test cost a few bucks and be valid for say 5 years, though an independent authority not the ISP itself (so its portable).

b) If you have not passed the test, your home computer connection (and all computers used from that IP) are monitored by a NAC system, and each PC can't get online (except to a quarantined list of IPs like OS and Virus app vendors) without passing a simple security screening as any business PC does (is it patched, does it have AV, are the definitions current, has a scan been run within the last 14 days, is there a logon password set). This requires a NAC application to be installed on your OS. If you don't meed NAC policies, you'll be quarantined into a network segment that can only reach sites that can help you meet those restrictions (OS vendor, AV vendor, etc) until you do.

c) If you have passed the test, and proven yourself security aware, a setting in the NAC app lets your local machine MAC address bypass the screenings, (and you can add more MAC addresses online personally through your account admin page), and no software is required and your machine is not managed by NAC (but you'll still be notified if they detect an infection, and if critical you may be temporarily quarantined).

d) If you are quarantined, but absolutely have to get online anyway, you'll have to pay a fee to get 24 hour access if you are not in NAC compliance. If we detect a virus, that is repairable through current AV definitions, you may be put into this quarantine even if you are not subject to the NAC scanning rules (but only if it is a critical self propagating virus or one active in an active attack against other systems. Low threat viruses will only get you warned, not quarantined).

essentially, if you don;t know better, we "assist" you in making sure you;re secure. If you don't want the assistance, get certified to bypass it. You may be quarantined if you have a serious infection (but you can pay to temporarily bypass it, or provide a scan log showing you're clean and we'll call it a false alarm and credit you something.

don't block

quarantine.

If they attempt to go to any web site other than an AV vendor, OS vendor, or pre-approved list of sites with cleaning and security tools, they get a simple DNS redirect instructing them to contact the help desk (without providing any direct links or phone numbers). Inform them they should seek help from Microsoft, Apple, Symantec, McAffee, or a list of other vendors, but provide only information, and not links. Tell them they should never see such a page containing links or apps to install directly. If they believe this page is in error call the help desk. If they believe they are being scammed, type comcast.com into their browser and log in to see the infection confirmation.

If all the ISPs did the same, and users were sent a copy of this screen in their next (and every) bill so they know it when they see it, we might get some people educated.

Why leave a known infected machine running online? Get it off so it can only get to IPs of known safe security vendors. If they feel the need to get online anyway without first cleaning their PC, make them pay a hefty fee for each 24 hours they wish to until clean. Let them get past "errors" and false positives by screen shotting a completed scan with an approved scanner.

agreed

Sandbox. Give them access to critical systems only. Give them a way past by calling the helpdesk and getting a lecture and paying a hefty fee if they can't simply run a scan and prove they're clean.

simple

They monitor to see if you are attempting to connect to known bot net IP addresses from your PC, or exhibiting bot-like behavior (DDOS, spamming, etc). There's not software in the PC, and they're not monitoring where you go or logging your connection, only detecting when you try to go to certain places know to be bot houses, or trigger certain thresholds over certain protocols (like SMTP).

yep

If we KNOW you have a bot, clearly identified by connectivity to a know bot server, or pattern of system behavior, then instead of an e-mail and banner, how about QUARANTINING THE USER CONNECTION!?!?! Make it accessible STRICTLY to pre-approved IPs of virus vendors and the OS vendor. Lock them offline from everything else until their PC is detected cleaned, or they provide a screen shot of the scan results of an approved and up-to-date scanning engine proving they're not infected in the first place, or until they call the helpdesk and (after paying a fee), demand open access even with an infected PC for 24 hours if they claim its business critical they not be blocked in the interim.

We can't do this for business class connections (other than notify them which they still should), but for residential accounts, I'd even go so far as to implement NAC systems for home users, only allowing a machine onto the open internet if all critical patches are installed and an approved (by 3rd party agency, not the ISP itself to avoid competition issues or vendor favoring) AV client is installed with the latest defs, and give them only a quarantined internet access otherwise. The vast majority of people on the internet are either too ignorant or too cheap or too lazy to secure their systems. these people should be quarantined unless they either comply or pay higher fees to not have to.

Three-version Avatar disc sets out 15 November

yes

branching is possible, but only with proper planning. Each "branch" has to not only have its own chapter, but it has to have it;s own audio track as well as recut movies don;t just re-insert clips but re-edit the audio for smooth transitions or music playing smoothly through an extended scene. This is very complicated, and expensive from a manpower and creation perspective, not to mention manu DVD players don;t play nicely with this (you know the "pase" when disks switch between layers in a long movie? Those pauses are usually at natural cuts, but imagine them mid-scene, irritating no?) DVD players were not built with a proper read-ahead buffer and handle moving the disk heads mid-scene very poorly. BR is completely capable of this, but studios don;t do it as the labor and planning costs often completely outweigh the material costs in adding the additional disk (especially when a 2 disk almost always sells for a higher price than 1 anyway because most consumers would not understand a 1 disk/2 movie pricing model).

iPhone apps put user privacy at risk

nope, wrong

The vast majority of computers are used by a single individual, or a family. Either way, PII associated with a machine address will lead you to an individual wither at a home, business, or if on a wireless network a remote location. PCs are more likely to be used by more than 1 person, but a laptop, PDA, phone, tablet, e-bookl reader, etc, are almost allways personal devices. More over, it;s NOt the person using it that we care about, it;s the ACCOUNT of the primary user we care about. Thats exactly the point, if I DID pick up your device, and it was unlocked, i might theoretically gain access to your PII. We're not worried about THEM having your PII (that's not even restricted, let alone illegal, it;s only restricted in how they store it, and how they share it, not in its collection in general), we're worried about other people having access to it. That's already covered by a whole slew of state and federal data protection laws. We don;t need a new one.

Besides, you need an account on someone's system. Whether they use a machine ID, or a username and password ,guess what, there's still PII behind that account ID. So long as they're not using an account ID that is also valid for other PROTECTED data (SSNs, bank accounts, etc), the Office of budget management doesn't care. To be precise, your home and work addresses, e-mail, and phone number are NOT EVEN PII! They're PUBLIC RECORD unless you have them redacted (and they;re only redacted from the records you specify, not universally, and not all records can be redacted).

The use of the UUID by vendors is a simple and reliable system for allowing a paid-for app to access a server for content while blocking illegitimate installations. A user and password is equally usable, but is far more complicated to implement and has it;s own security implications (worse since even most IT admins don;t follow proper cross-service account security practices and re-use user names and passwords all over the place). A UUID is tied to a device, not a person like a SSN or licence plate or tax ID. If there is a breach, simply replacing the device (which under federal law would be at the expense of the violating company, not you), and the UUID is now unique again. Take away this ID, and they'll use another one. If you force them to make one up, then changing the device does NOT change the association, and that's worse.

Do you understand the results of implementing this ban on using IDs? They'll make up another one, and it will be less secure and more tied to you personally.

privacy from WHO?

The only people who can track your location are the cell companies and distributors of GPS apps. Apple VERY tightly controls app vendors who connect to the GPS API (as well as other restricted APIs) and further all these companies have to be US based and are subject to US PII data collection and storage laws.

Can the government get your GPS locations? sure, with due process alone, not even a warrant. Know what? that's a pretty big hurdle. Getting your location data from a cell company is easy, sure, for a cop at a dedicated system with the right software, an open case number, and permission from his budget office (because its expensive). Cops don;t jsut look someone up willy nilly, that data is audited by external agencies and privacy groups alive, not to mention IA and their own boss. Touching that data without cause for an active case can get a cop put in jail for years (and it has happened). They're VERY cautious about accessing such data. They don't look up their coworkers wives locations to see if they're cheating like you see on TV... Besides, if a cop wants to find you, they already have your home and work address, that of your kids schools, immediate family, your bank, PO box, and more. If they could not get a GPS or tower lock on you, they'de just wait for you somewhere they know you'll be. Thats why tracking data requires no warrant today (it still requires due process, and if that process if not follwoed, its still completely inadmissible, and illegal to have collected).

There's so fucking much protection against authority abusing your data in this country its absurd. Police departments get hit for million dollar fines for simply accessing what they should not. Its not a slap on the wrist, it;s cops being ripped from their families, thrown in prison, careers ruined, bad shit, on top of county or city budgets taking massive hits. They do NOT permit unauthorized access to your cell phone, GPS, or other data without a damned good and well documented reason on an open case.

That said, without that tower location service, and with your insistence on using old phones that don't support it, good luck getting quick help from 911 when your car is in a ditch... those same cops who you make it mor difficult (but far from impossible) to trace won;t be able to find you when you;re dying either.

Oh, and as for all the nut jobs who think they're tracking all your GPS movements, purchases, and mroe, and catalogging that in some giant data mining system to cross reference the activity of every american: HaHaHaHa. Do some math assholes. Currently (last I checked) State Farm had the largest privately owned data center in the world. Tens of Billions per year spent of data systems and server, to store nothing more than your policy elections, property information, payment history, and claims filed. That's it... Less than 1MB of data typically per policy holder, and that's the largest single datacenter in the world not owned by a government. The IRS dwarfs that, and they only contain your tax records. They had a grand idea a few years ago to centralize all the public school records in a national database; guess what, just your kids grades and other school documentation was more data than any system conceived could be built to support. Do you really think a database of every call, transaction, and just your within 5 mile accurate location on a 15 minute interval could possibly be stored, let alone find a CPU big enough to MINE it??? Then there's the nodes to actually collect the data, and the software costs on integrating into literally thousands of distinct and custom systems? IT IS NOT POSSIBLE WITH ANY KNOWN TECHNIOLOGY.

I know the government isn't monitoring you for 2 very real reasons: 1, it;s not possible, not at any price that could be hidden (orders of magnitude of our total military anual spending) and 2 I work in many, many governemnt datacenters and ISPs as a security contractor and systems analyst and no such connections exist, other than do do a single data lookup (and get charged per transaction), with maximum numbers of look ups per period of time possible over that connection.

You may have heard numbers like the LA county police performed some 80,000 cell location lookups just with one phone company in a year. Wow, that sounds bad, until you find out that those 80,000 lookups were for about 250 individuals... since each individual snapshot-in-time lookup is a) charged for and b) only valid for that split time, and c) not real-time, it just displays it on the screen. They got billed more than $500 per click too. ...and that data was audited and made public.

YOU ARE NOT BEING WATCHED (unless there's a reason for it, in which case, trust me, it's MUCH better to be found easily and go willingly, and explain things, and be found to be innocent, than hunted and fight the system. If they have evidence they believe points at you, and you believe it doesn't, get a lawyer and ride the system.

Really, think about it, all the KNOWN criminals still on the street we don't have the money and manpower to hunt down and they would give a shit about you WHY exactly?

no

not on any mobile phone. Further, although you CAN change the MAC as presented to the network, the actual hardware MAC is still retrievable from the physical adapter. You can not obscure the MAC from the host OS, only from systems it communicates with.

paranoid?

1st, they have to code against the API to get data such as your call history, and they better have a damned good explanation for apple as yo why they're using it, and more so why they're transmitting it.

Next, if they're collecting PII, they're covered under SAS and other federal regulation (and likely state laws as well). They're a BUSINESS. They collect that data for business purposes. Their personal information is on file with apple (including bank account information), and they're very easy to track down by authorities if they abuse PII laws.

finally, the vast majority of UUID use in iDevices is simply to allow access to an online service for identified purchasers of the app. They don't need your personal data to know you bought it, just your UUID. However, they could jsut as easily use the SIM code, MAC address, phone number, serial number, or any other code they simply MAKE UP. Even if you create your own username and password, guess what, that's a code to store PII by!!! If they have to authenticate, they have a code to use for you.

The government restricts using national or state identifiers, and credit account information, as account IDs with 3rd parties. You can't use my DL number, SSN, license plate, or a bunch of other restricted codes because that also might give access to an alternate data system. However, a mundane unique ID like an address, e-mail, phone number, serial number, etc is not in use by a bank or agency and is thus acceptable to use for ID purposes.

Yes, this information can be used to locate you. They can do the same simply by looking up your property tax records (which are PUBLIC RECORD MATERIAL!) You can ditch a device if you've had an identity theft issue, changing the UUID, change your accounts, cancel your accounts, and more. Your GPS data is only shared if you LET it be shared (you;re prompted by each app, but more over, Apple VERY strictly monitors who uses the GPS APIs and even more tightly if those apps also send data as well as receive it from the internet. All these companies are back checked, and trust me, as an IT analyst, the government is all up in their shit with system and security audits. Call history data is not accessible on the iPhone by 3rd party apps (except VoiP apps that maintain their own call history, but they already not only have that in their servers, they're required by LAW to keep that data).

... and WHO CARES if a company knows where I am? and has my address and a few phone numbers. They can't share that data without my permission. Do you really think some company that developed an apple app, went through a background check as a dev, gave apple their contact information and bank routing data, is really doing to steal your PII just to do what, contact you?

If you;re putting your GPS data on a social site, that's your problem. If a 3rd party company who has a GPS app tracks that data, apple would have confirmed they had a damned good reason to do so. If apple finds out they're keeping data needlessly (as they have in the past) they drop the dev, stop payment on due funds, and report them to authorities (as they have done). Since all US distributed apps are US based companies with US based servers, we're so rediculously protected by outr own laws this is really a non-issue. It;s not credit card data, it;s not SSNs, its generic data that in many cases is already of public record or not restricted by the US Office of Budget Management.

What about the MAC address?

a MAC address is just another machine ID that is unique to each device, and readily accessible... as is the SIM ID.... Either of these are just as dangerous, and are equally exposed on EVERY phone.

Face it, the UUID itself is NOT associated with a person, a person is associated to perhaps many UUIDs. The UUID can also be easily changed, by changing the device, and there is no formal notification to anyone that a UUID has been changed. Yes, on a single device, an app could choose to use the UUID as an account number of sorts, and use that ID as a database reference to where actual personal information might be stored on their servers via the app. However, that collected data can not be easily shared, and other apps will have no access to PII saved on someone else's servers. The UUID is just a convenient (and not illegal to use) ID code that can be used in leiu of making users explicitly create an account and account number (which would then be equally as traceable!).

Guess what, no matter WHAT unique ID they use for your account number, they have to have an account number to have access controls in place. If they store personally identifiable information (a combination of data identified by the Office of Budget Management that could be used to physically locate or identify an individual with accuracy), then their data centers are subject to a whole slew of federal and state regulations about PII data handling and security, how they have to notify the user of it;s collection, how they're allowed to share it, and what they have to do if they have a data leak. At least we know that apple restricts such apps to be US based for US app sales, thus ensuring US Law is protecting users of the device here (same in the EU). There are no apps in the US app store that use international based servers for storage of PII.

That said, PII is nowhere NEAR as protected as Medical, credit, banking, or other information (like SSNs). Most information considered PII is actually PUBLIC RECORD! (tax records, phone book records, real estate purchase records, and more). Things protected as strict PII are license plate, SSN, drivers license number, credit card numbers, fingerprints, signatures, genetic profile, birthdate (in combination with full name or name and place of birth), and other nationally issued ID numbers, and in some cases your IP address if its static.

Things not considered PII (but can be in certain combinations) are your registered school, number of children and ages, your age if specific, party affiliation, gender, race, city of residence, salary, job title, criminal record (as redacted).

Note specifically your ADDRESS is not considered PII. Nor is your e-mail address, nor phone number.

Further, it is in NO WAY illegal to collect or store PII. It is only "restricted" (not even illegal) to sell or trade it, or display it, without the express permission of the person, and storage of PII comes under SAS or other security regulations. Generic PII can not be used to get into your credit information (only account numbers and SSN can be, and they're further restricted under various credit protection acts in addition to being PII). The only thing PII might get you is robbed, or some hate mail, or some spam.

Hybrid drives: the next generation

so...

Its basically a BD/DVD writer with a 64GB SSD slammed in the same package. wohoo. space savings by removing the HDD but not removing the bulkier and slower optical drive???

I want a 64GB SDD slammed inside a 500GB-1TB 2.5" drive... and further with the block level intelligence to automatically move repeatedly accessed blocks between the two as a background process, the same way my SAN infrastructure does on tiered disk arrays. That's the hybrid driver we were promisedwhen Windows Vista was still in alpha...

Being limited to 64GB for the OS and removable media (very, very slower removable media at that) for everything else provides me little real benefits (since almost anything i can put in a media drive i can get online anyway, I'm considering not having one in my next notebook and would not be surprised if it was Apple that first killed them off in their product line).

iPad spends 20% of time in bed

um, no.

A netbook does not:

- rotate to portrait view for better reading of website and book content

- support touch, let alone multi-touch (in this price category)

- weigh even close to 1.5lbs or come close to the thin form factor

- last nearly as long on a charge

- charge nearly as quick

- boot instantly from hibernate

- auto adjust brightness

- survive the elements (keyboards and light rain do not mix, but the iPad is a sealed device and has little issue with water unless submerged)

- play HD video (sorry, net books under $500 need not apply)

- support Air tunes to wirelessly output video or audio to a TV

- have a slick UI for managing photos and e-mail quickly

- have apps that cost an average under $2

- support wireless N 5GHz while also having blue tooth and 3G

- have an option for contract free 3G wireless under $40/month (say, like a $14.95 on again - off again plan)

- have an IPS display

- sync easily to another PC for backup

- get all its app updates through a single and easy to use interface, none of which require the device to be rebooted to install them.

- get remotely wiped if they're lost, protecting your personal data

- connect to Exchange servers without a $300 version of Office

- be used on the majority of major University campuses (if it won't join a domain, but runs Windows, you cant use it as it wonl;t join their network or access e-mail, however most campuses do fully permit Exchange integration from iOS devices, and many distribute iOS apps for iPad and iPhone to access critical campus resources).

- don't even compare to 13" notebooks that cost just $200 more that might be 1" larger and 1lb heavier (aka irrelevant difference in usability).

- cant be serviced locally under warranty

- have an app store for online purchase of hundreds of thousands of applications.

- Share the same software license without additional cost across every iDevice in your family

- Easier to use? Seriously, you think Windows is a simpler OS than iOS? Are you brain dead or blind or both?

Netbooks do:

- require continual patching and maintenance, from a variety of vendors, through a variety of interfaces that are often exploited by hackers and phishing scams (or by viruses if not patched)

- require manual backup, typically requiring 3rd party software since the pro versions of Windows that include backup are verbotten on netbook class hardware.

- require expensive applications for common tasks

- crash

- have cramped, uncomfortable to use, non-standard keyboards and even worse track pads

- reboot, frequently, sometimes causing dataloss if the reboot was unexpected or due to a dead battery

- require OS upgrades periodically. Upgrades between major versions can cost $129.

- have poor resolution and quality screens

- still require a real PC to be on hand for any complex tasks or heavy workloads, or large storage volumes. They're secondary devices at best.

- have larger hard drives (though still not big enough to stand on their own completely for most users, and mostly irrelevant if you're cloud connected)

- near impossible to track when stolen from you

- have abysmal resale value

- have a declining sales model and limited manufacturing future (20% off from last year, and a prediction of 50% less next year)

- have any hope of supporting Windows 8 when released in the next 18 months (or so).

Sure, a netbook does a lot that an iPad doesn't. Well, really, not that much at all when you think about it. And an iPad does a lot that netbooks do not, and in a much more convenient and portable form factor. On the run, if you need raw document editing power, you need a small notebook, not a netbook. If you;re only using a netbook for surfing, presentations, and casual use, you have no business case that an iPad (or other tablet equally crippled compared to a netbook) can't already do.

A smartphone is great of a quick lookup, but an iPad is far superior for churning through 200 e-mails, managing and editing a hundred photos, reading web sites at length, commenting in forums, or pulling up a book or TV show on a screen. An iPad doesn't replace a smart phone, it COMPLEMENTS one. A netbook doesn't replace a PC, it is a SECOND one, to nurture and feed and complicate your life switching between the two constantly. A netbook may be cheaper by $100 in hardware, but it;s $400-500 more expensive in software over its live, more than $1000 more if you need a 3G contract for it on top.

You're a nay-sayer for the sake of being one, rehashing arguements the iPad community has long smashed to oblivion.

...and no, i don't own an iPad, nor a Mac. I'm not a Fanboi, I'm an enterprise networks systems and security analyst and Macs don't fit in my world very well. I just can;t stand half assed commnets like yours, especially when it;s nothing but FUD. (and old rehashed FUD at that).

Please do us all a favor, and abandon your forum account here.

misinformed

First, iWork on the iPad can export to Word and Excel just fine, and vice versa, including through the cloud and iDisk.

next, more iPads have been sold to PC owners than Mac owners. The vast majority may already own an iPhone or iPod Touch, but there's no correlation between Mac owner and iPod buying in any demographic i can find.

I'll agree, a mac user may certainly have a more positive experience using an ipad given some added perks, but keep in mind iOS syncs just as well with Exchange or gMail as it does mobileme and the mac OS X suite.

The majority of the reason the iPad is so popularly accepted by its buyers? Even given some restrictions, its simply a slickly enough implemented UI and series of features, not to mention familiar if coming from an iPhone, and it has the multimedia power to do what most people want it to. (people who need a notebook already had one... they didn;t even consider an iPad)

Really...

You must be so full of yourself you neglect that a) its been 7 months since the release of the device and the honeymoon period is LONG over, b) its a well known fact it still lacks features it;s older cousin the iPhone already deployed, including multitasking, and c) its still selling like hotcakes anyway and nothing the competition has released to counter it has ended in anything but utter failure (or bankruptcy).

Why is an iPad used 20% of the timer in bed? Maybe you should dig into the actual data and demographics a bit. 1: being married, i can tell you whether we have sex or not, one of us is usually up past the other reading a book, which is easily replaced with an iPad. 2: being married ,letting the wife watch her boring ass TV shows while I use a laptop or book is a great way to keep the peace, and ean more sex. 3: The majority of americans do mroe than 50% of their reading in bed, married or not. This is not a new statistic. 4: many, many iPad customers are either single, in college (no sleepovers permitted), or in their parents houses. This is by no means all of them, but if you ask a 15 year old how much time they spend with an iPad in bed, you'll likey find its 75+%. Why? They LIVE on their bed every hour they're at home unless they're eating (and still then sometimes), in order to stay as far away from other family members as possible at all times.

Associating use of an iPad in bed with those who could otherwise choose sex and have chosen not to? Man, you really have a twisted idea of reality. Stop watching so many romance flicks and wake up.

btw, i am not an iPad owner. I have no immediate plans to get one. If i DID get a tablet device ,iPad, or eReader, I'd EXPECT a large portion of its use would be in bed. I could use it to watch TV shows the wife doesn't like while she's watching hers. It;s a book that needs no annoying book light, I could sort photos or reply to e-mail during commercials. I could dig further into an interesting tidbit mentioned on the nightly news. i could buy a track from a band highlighted on the late show, there's a thousand reasons to use one in bed. Heck, it could even be used to enhance the sex (there are not only numerous tantric or sex position apps, not to mention the internet, but using it as a music feed to the TV through Airplay is also very much an option.

Not surprised at all

considering some 90% of my casual reading is done in bed, I'm not surprised a device that doubles as an e-reader gets that attention. Also ,watching TV in bed before nodding off, I could get a few last e-mails read, check a social site, or just game idly while the news is churning through uninteresting content or the wife is watching something boring.

When considering an iPad (which i have yet to acquire), putting the charger in the bedroom was one of my first thoughts as I naturally assumed it would be used about 20-30% of the time in bed and 50+% on the couch. I honestly assumed it would rarely, if ever, actually leave the house except on long car trips.

Hundreds of Americans, bystanders injured playing video games

same watching sports, or even a good movie

"bystander" injuries are anytime someone got whacked because someone else got excited. I've had a god friend get a broken nose when another flailed at an interception causing his team to loose. The video game was not the cause of the injury, it was the cause of excitement. You go on, tell Americans our kids can't get excited or let out positive emotions. I'm sure the body count in 20 years when these kids all go postal in shopping malls will appropriately outweigh the few stitches saved.

Multi-touch iMacs prepped in Cupertino?

thanks troll

First off, I'm no fanboi, i run Win 7 and several different Linux OS on a custom PC at home...

That said, on a MBP, dual booting or using parallels to concurrently boot, the majority of Mac Specific hardware functions, including gestures and that lovely touch pad, are present when running Windows on mac hardware. Apple added the requisite drivers in boot camp thanks.

HDMI? no, Display Port thanks. It's a PC, not a TV. An adapter is $6 to convert to HDMI if you actually need to hook up to a TV, but DisplayPort supports higher color and resolutions and is superior to HDMI in most every comparison. We care about more than 1080p thanks. Having both DP and HDMI is redundant. Also, DP is both an input and output, without requiring separate connections, and I can hook a BR player right up to an iMac (directly). Note on the HTPCs apple makes, HDMI is standard, on computers DP is standard. This is the industry direction. HDMI is only for TVs and fully compatible with DP output. Most video cards sold have DP ports and VGA/DVI, very few continue to have HDMI. (they ship with an adapter)

As for BR, short of on my TV, I really don't want it. In fact, currently I don't have one at all and see no reason to get one anytime soon. Physical media is not worth it in most cases if digital copies are available. It's not worth exporting BR media to files for playback when i can get those files online anytime i want. Why waste the expense in hardware and complexity? BR media is virtually useless for backups, ridiculously expensive and not worth making copies (its cheaper to buy the media legally), and I can get digital versions of most movies online in HD (again legally) for less than I pay for the BR disk. Explain why exactly I need a player I have no use for that i can do the same thing with cheaper in other ways? Adding BR to a PC is a nightmare of complexity.

Look at how many Dells and HPs come with them, but CAN'T DECODE OR PLAY HDCP CONTENT! Its a media player for encoded formats only, pretty much useless since in 2011 most video will start coming out with the HDCP flag turned on... Some few PCs truly support BR media, but to do it, HDCP has to be preserved at every step, which means the player, SATA controller, chip-set, video card ,and TV/monitor ALL have to support it. That means name brand chipsets, dedicated GPUs, and certified HDCP pathways. 90% of the machines sold with BR players do NOT meet this guideline. Apple refuses to join that party, and doing it right is not only expensive in design, its expensive in royalties, and for the estimated 5% who will use it, all of who could get by doing the same thing without it.

much more use for touch

My wife has a MBP. iPhoto and iMovie are a practical joy to use with the giant multi-touch pad. Manipulation of images is so frigging simple. In fact, I've gotten so used to the track pad on the mac, I now really hate using the touch pad on my own notebook (I'm constantly trying to use mac gestures on a simple track pad and its infuriating why it can't do the same). Simple things like a simple gesture to rotate the photo, a quick squeeze to zoom and crop, tap tap tap to set color filtering or effects, tap to confirm identified faces, swipe to the next photo, all without touching a mouse or keyboard. Doing that onscreen would be even simpler and faster. If I could touch the photos directly (as I see done on iPads), this would even more drive home the experience.

I could equally see the same for web site manipulation, doing research, working with complex documents and presentations, managing your in-box, and more. Yea, a keyboard still very much required for text input (I'm not willing to sacrifice pixels, nor the feel), but having a keyboard close and being able to touch manipulate physical objects goes a long way in the every day tasks I do. The majority of file management is moving something from one place to another, even managing the OS itself.

Detail work still requires the accuracy of a mouse and text input isn't a simply gesture system you still need a keyboard (a quick keyboard for a quick e-mail is handy, but I'd not type post this on a virtual keyboard). I'd still prefer keystrokes for working in excel and databases as well. But, lets face it, how much of what you do daily, unless you're an artist, designer, inputting large volumes of text, would not be quicker and easier in a touch UI (especially if apple's other patent regarding having the OS change the UI based on screen orientation from a full blown OS to a streamlines touch focused system is becomes a reality).

likely not

compared to the keyboard and mouse you have to use instead, the screen should be significantly less prone to spreading infection.

Touch screens, by nature of getting grimy with fingerprints, are frequently cleaned. Keyboards, mouse? it's been a loooong time...

That siad, i do believe very few people in an office require (or would benefit from efficiency improvements) of a touch UI. Touch makes management of massive amounts of things easier, but has little or no impact on direct generic job efficincy (think call center, secretary, generic office supervisor). Touch is really fantastic for working with images, complex document creation, anything that can be tabled and worked on with hands and real materials translates well to touch, data entry not so much... Maybe 5-10% of office personal would see a real benefit from a touch UI. (granted, that's the 5-10% who might also benefit from using a Mac, not to say almost every desktop especially in call centers could be replaced by one, but there's no appreciable gain doing so).

rumor?

It was a patent! Actually, it wasn't dual iOS/OS X btw, but OS X took on "aspects" of iOS (and could emulate iOS applications), but it did not in fact run to separate OS. More importantly, when switching from OS X to iOS, applications (like pages or keynote as examples) could detect this and themselves seamlessly orient to their more touch friendly versions removing options and buttons that make little sense in a touch UI and semalessly shift back to their full version, without impact to the file or relaunching apps, simply by changing the orientation of the device.

very smart patent idea. Very much looking forward to seeing OS 10.7 or 10.8 and the new iLife and iWork apps do this.

AutoCAD bear hugs interwebs, Apple iOS

If you think that's expensive...

...you really have no idea. I've a friend in MRI research. Some of the 3d modeling applications they use are $50-150K per seat. Some of the physics modeling software is half a million, just to run on a single workstation. Some of the stuff animation and professional video editing studios play with is also in this price range. AutoCAD is a professional suite capable of meeting the extremely complex guidelines of each nation, state or county for building codes, mechanical design rules, and more, and capable of exporting the design file in an array of formats for 3rd party plug-in for 3D rendering, animation, virtual engineering analysis, and more. "expensive" is very relative when the guy sitting at the desk using it costs $100K a year.

In my own data center I don't think there's a single server operating with less than $2500 in licenses on it. The average is over $10K. Some are licensed over $50K (per cluster node). I don't even want to take a guess at the VMWare licensing or DR system licensing total costs.

Tablets in, netbooks out, forecasts analyst

bad math.

Netbooks and non-iPads COMBINED are not 200% of iPad sales currently, and that accommodates Apple's heavy backorder status, and limited international rollout. Doubling the number of nations, Apple could very easily ship 5-6m iPads in Q4, and continue to grow to 6-7m per quarter in 2011. At the same time, limited demand will see many netbook models leaving the market, especially better configured ones that verge on notebook specs, and the fragmentation of android and webOS based tables, and poor market support in the app communities will continue to keep them expensive, and a risky buy.

2 dozen netbook manufacturers, lower prices than iPads, better specs than iPads, and yet Apple is potentially going to be a full half of the market before the end of 2011.

Don;t get me wrong, I'm an android fan, and I think Android is potential y(once 3.0 comes out anyway) a better tablet OS in terms of feature and flexibility, but my issue really boils down to Androids limited user protections (security, etc), limited multitouch support in the OS (some apps do OK, but not the UI in general), poor overall app visual quality (including apps that cost twice what iOS aps do for the same ap, often from the same developer), and limited overall app selection for tablet oriented functions (there's no office equivalent on android), yet Microsoft is making an iOS version of office....).

how many devices?

If you have a phone, tablet, and netbook, you then also have a notebook? I see the iPad as a real nice fit between my PC and my phone, I do not require BOTH a tablet and a netbook. There is VERY little a netbook is capable of that an iPad or other tablet can not accomodate, especially if you include VNC back to a main PC... There's so little i would do on a netbook that could not wait until I got back to a notebook 'd hesitate to carry around. a 10" ipad screen vs a 10 or 11" netbook screen (at almost certainly lower resolution on the netbook btw), cramped has little to do with inches, but pixels.

Personally, I find the 15"MBP actually very easy to tote about anyway. 6+ hours (reliably) on a charge, and it's only 4lbs. A netbook might save me 1 lb, and 2", but its sub par performance eliminates any need to want to do anything on it the iPad can't do all on its own. The very rare cases when I'm out and about without a notebook and absolutely have to run a PC app there's no iPad equv for, VNC back to my desktop and its covered....

Google Voice embraced by Apple?

This is actually simple.

No, AT&T did not specifically intervene in the google app approval process. They didn't have to... It was in Apple's contract with AT&T to not allow IP calls, a term negotiated during the strong-arming apple used to get unlimited data for $20 including 200 free texts in the data plan (later changed to $30 without texts). Keep in mind, the original contracts between Apple and (Cingular) were done when the iPhone had no 3rd party apps at all. AT&T had already negotiated their changes to the cingular contract before the 3G and the SDK were released. (they had been negotiating deal changes since the day the bought Cingular).

With 3rd party apps on the scene, and unlimited data, AT&T had to protect their minute plans from ViOP calling. So it was in contract. At least, we're mostly certain it was, as AT&T later, publically, made a statement that they changed their terms of use and VoIP was now an approved OTA technology, thus voiding the pre-exiting terms in Apples-AT&T deal. Skype and others very quickly took hold of this, once Apple's legal team took some time to confirm the AT&T line items in their own contract were equally effected when end user terms were updated. Google however is a special case as its a redirection service, not really a VoIP system, and its certainly taken extra time to negotiate that (especially with the whole free texts thing, and callerID redirection).

Apple, under AT&Ts non disclosure of their mutual contract terms, could not publicly communicate the reason they had to previously reject google's app, so they made up the "replaces functionality" thing.

AT&T really is the reason google could not be approved, ecven though they were not directly involved. Likely, googles use of some internal functions were also questinoable, especially including the address book, and may have contributed. The fact it could directly dial calls from within its own interface, including auto-answering the incoming call connection, might have been an issue too. Finally the ability to potentially hide incoming callers behind false callerID put a kink in AT&T's "A-List" plan, something appel would I'm sure also be held to protect under secret contracts.

iPhone devs' riches exceed expectations

bad statistics

The dev pool is a hundred thousand. 110 polled is a statistical anomaly, way too easily swayed by poor question wording, media bais, or just a bad pool sample, with a survey variance for accuracy through the roof. If you have not polled at least 10% of a pool, or at least 1,000 individuals across a detailed spread of the demographic noting pool selection variance from those demographics, then your survey is worthless.