Posts by Michael C 866 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Mar 2007
The carrier should be data validating text messages entering their network in the first place, not simply passing on garbage unfiltered content to mobiles.
"malformed" really does mean malformed in this case, including characters often not even possible to type on cell phones even with virtual keyboards. Folks, if it ain't basic alphas, nums, and simply symbols, bounce it back to the sender....
Apple clearly was aware of the capability when they approved the app.
Further, this is just more proof of point, having tried it, of why Apple made a GOOD CHOICE to not allow their own face-time over 3G. The 3G latency and limited bandwidth simply can not handle a stable and high quality video feed. Even on HSDPA on both ends, it's still choppy and unreliable.
They APPROVED it you friggin trolls!
Oh, and the video over 3G, lol, its not a "Skype beat us to it" its a "it's laughable it even works" In fact, it BARELY works, even noting the frame-rate is crippled, and that the resolution is lower than FaceTime, its even more choppy and fails to remain connected reliably, even on HSDPA.
At least FaceTime does work, fairly reliably, over 3G care of MiFi. The reason Apple (and AT&T) are holding back on open 3G video call support has little to do with contracts between them, pricing issue, lost revenue, etc, it has to do with the fact that cell latency (300-500ms) just does not handle video chat well at currently available speeds. Apple is a stickler for making a thing work well in all situations, and video over 3G simply does not work well, so they currently leave it out. They could cut the resolution and framerate as others do on other networks, but then why bother?
sticking to face time.
Over 3G, even between phones on HSPA towers, the video was not just laggy, its reaaaaaly laggy and of significantly lower resolution. Even FaceTime over MiFi did better.
If anything, this is a good proof of why Apple chose NOT to include 3G video calling.... Its just not worth it. After a less than 4 minute call, I was having a hard time watching the screen.
btw, it's not just AT&T either, we tried it over Sprint and Verizon as well (we have numerous miFi like things around here). It was the worst by far over Verizon, video calls dropped after 15-30 seconds (no surprise, they have the slowest data speed of any provider here).
Hybrid storage works on a basic level, for caching frequent blocks, but it works a lot better if the OS is involved in the decisions predictably moving associated files in and out of the cache in response to the application being used. Put a large enough cache onboard and this becomes less and less of a gain, but at only 4G, its a fraction of what's needed without Os intelligence.
Make the cache 24 or 36GB, and at a less than $50 price bump, and we have a winning combination.
Look, i don't need to babysit 3 completely different systems that don't like to talk/sync/backup to each other, each require separately licensed software, and have to be maintained. I want a single main PC and "companion" devices used to work with stuff I have on it, plus bring their own perks.
iOS is nice. Apple gets it. A PC that has everything and can do everything, and a series of small portable devices that interact with it and contain portions of the data set, all linked by LAN or cloud. I don't want to have to worry about how many licenses of some app I have, whether I need AV or not, manage a dozen plug-ins and helper apps, and have to u[pdate 3 apps every time i turn on a device I've not used in a week, and all on my portable devices. i want life SIMPLE.
The iPad or an android based tablet gives me moderate power and performance for 90% of my daily tasks. If I know I'm going to need more, I can break out the notebook and bring it along. I have a NAS for hosting data instead of a giant desktop PC left on 24x7, a $99 media streamer, a high performance notebook to handle decent game-play and basic video editing, a smart-phone for on the run needs and notifications, and I could see many uses for a simple media tablet. I do NOT want a full PC OS on any of my devices except the main computer. Software for desktops is expensive, maintenance is a pain, security is a concern, and it only brings me the 10% my other devices can't? Why would I want more than 1???
If they can make an under 2lb tablet at 13" with desktop class resolution and CPU/GPU power, that has a 10 hour battery and a full keyboard, and a optical drive, then i don't need both a tablet and a PC, but so long as tablets ware low performance secondary systems, then I want them running secondary OS and relying on a main PC for it's ongoing services.
If a have a business reason to have proprietary apps that benefit a tablet form factor, I'll go buy a $1500 true tablet PC, but all i want is a media companion device that does things a 4" screen can't, a smart-phone, set top boxes, and one single PC.
Yes, I get that a full blown HTPC can do more than a set top. I get that a tablet OS that's Ubuntu can do more. I'm NOT however willing to deal with the performance limits lower end (lighter) hardware bring to that OS, or the higher price and equivalent weight to simply having a laptop to get it. I like buying one app and using it legally on 5 device, and paying $0-10 for the app instead of $50-300 per machine. I like not having to back up 5 different systems. I don;t want to pay the much higher TCO just to do a few things that either carrying 2 extra pounds with me, or taking 30 seconds to just plug the laptop into the TV already do.
Apple gets it. Google understands. Microsoft, the Linux community, and the laptop manufacturers have no concept of this. They're flailing about trying to remain relevant in a world that's leaving them out.
Tablets that make touch easy on an OS designed and streamlined for the 90% of tasks and simple time wasting things we like to do is good. Trying to use a mouse-oriented interface with a fat finger, and needing 2-3times the horsepower, half again the cost, less than half the battery life, and no standby usability (the iPad gets alerts while asleep, just like smart phones, Windows and Ubontu can't do that), not to mention $60/month for a data plan instead of 30 for a mobile OS? why would anyone do that?
Tablets have been on the market since 1999. They went NOWHERE. Its not the price, it;s the function. it can't be your only PC due to the design, and nobody wants to babysit (or pay for) 2 machines that 90+% overlap in use.
for one, anything done more easily in portrait mode vs landscape, most especially web browsing and e-reading.
here's a bunch more reasons and uses
- lighter and more portable by far
- significantly longer battery life than even a netbook
- still gets alerts and notices even when in sleep mode
- hang from the seat in a car for on-the-go video entertainment
- more comfortable to use laying on a couch
- if you already also have a desktop PC, no second full PC OS to care for (patch, maintain, secure, update) and buy expensive app licenses for. Having both a desktop and a laptop/netbook is kind of dumb, and performance laptops are more expensive than a desktop and a tablet combined.
- thousands of great apps under $5, not starting around $50.
- easily used while standing
- can handle levels of 3D gaming only notebooks costing 2+ times the price can meet.
- easy to enable parental controls
- 3G Data plans from $14.99 up to $30, not $60 for aircards or relying on MiFi's with 4 hour max battery life.
- no contract data plans
- remote wipe if lost
- has GPS
- UI is very easy to use, and apps customized to be used by fingers on appropriate screens (does not yet apply to Android)
- great for kids you don't want to give a full performance laptop to.
- easy backups without 3rd party software
- counts as a personal mobile device for insurance purposes (laptops typically require rider policies to be covered by car insurance, but many other devices like phones and cameras do not require one, or come with lower premiums, depends on insurance company).
- easier to gain HIPAA and SoX and DOD STIG compliance for companies
- no spinning disks
- you can find a charger almost anywhere in a pinch, worst case buy one for $10
- easily powered by cigarette lighter sockets
- easy to sync with another machine and/or the cloud
- resale value still at higher than 50% after a year,as high as 75% common
If you have a notebook you're happy with, and don't mind lugging around, and a smartphone that can already tether, there's certainly fewer compelling reasons to add a tablet to the mix. Personally, I'm planning on getting an iPad 2 (if Android 3 fails to impress, I'm not too happy about the descriptions of their "panes" model of their tablet OS screen use), and honestly, it probably will rarely leave the house except on vacations, I'll watch TV and read books on the couch while watching the kids while the wife watches boring crap or kids shows that make my ears hurt.
Did they claim it could handle images? did they say it could lock cells? A word processor is just that, WORDS. Did they advertise it was a desktop LAYOUT application? no. Could WordStar handle images? It could not even handle FONTS!
If the maker was clear about it's capabilities, and advertised what it could do, your failure as a consumer to learn in advance of purchase what it could not (which it appears there was a YEAR of data providing just that), then it is in no violation of Apple's policy for it to be sold as such.
If you expected a $5 (or free, there's more than 1 free WP app in the app store) app to be comparable to a $250 desktop suite, hahahahahaha. Even the $10 pages app has significant limits. only if they said it could do this and could not does Apple have any culpability.
Apple controls what is collected and why. They do NOT allow apps to collect data that is illegal to collect, and they further as "why do you need to collect that" if they feel the data is unnecessary for the app to work.
However, once scrutiny is applied, and they determine the data can be collected, what that company chooses to do, in violation of Apple's policies, and in some cases against the law, has no bearing on Apple itself.
ANYONE can buy a baseball bat. If I buy one, and kill someone with it, can I someone sue the manufacturer? no, only if they knew this would be the case before purchase ever occurred. Prove Apple knew that this legally collected, and legally request able, not-PII data was in fact being used against policy and Apple allowed it to continue, and you might have a case wo force apple to enforce their OWN policies, but no laws actually apply to the collection and dissemination of this data. It is not in fact PII at all. It is only "possibly" PII when used to data mine against OTHER sources of data they should not have legal access to.
the phone does not share that data, people ENTER that data into the app itself when it requests it, thereby clearly gaining user consent. The only addition is the UDID, which all apps not only have access to, but is the required device ID to be used (MAC address use is forbidden). General concent is already acquired for any app to use the UDID.
Also, the "uniquely identifiable" information collected from the device, consistent with user consent and apple limits on type of data, can alone identify nothing but the DEVICE, and not the person using it. Only with access to additional data sources that don;t come from the phone and data mining applications can additional narrowing come up with a name, and the use of this data to do that is already illegal under federal law. Apple in no way provides access to restricted PII, nor do they enable companies to data mine other sources, companies who might do that would both be guilty of lying to apple about the use of the data and be in violation of federal law at the same time.
but Pandora GOT permission, through the license agreement you have to accept to get an account on Pandora. The app can get the data, but it can;t transmit it unless you have an account, within which you gave them consent to this use of your data, and this is consistent both with Apple's policy and the law. in fact, per the law, Pandora doesn't even have to notify you of what they are collecting because none of that data is actually legally defined PII in the first place.
The program is monitored closely, and they do catch apps collecting data they shoudl not be sharing (even if the access to that data is legitimately needed). It can only access what it is allowed to through approved APIs, and that is fairly limited as it is, and even that access is subject to "why do you need to" questions before final approval. the issue is what the app dev does with legitimately collected data AFTER collecting it. Apple has no control what so ever in that. The only recourse they have is to suspend an app or developer they know is in violation of that agreement.
though the Pandora app itself provides no such notice of intended use, the pandora website you create your account on, and their own service use EULA does clearly state this, so apple is covered.
ALL of this data is legally collectible data with or without user notice under US law anyway, so the whole suit is BS, especially since it;s own personally identifiable if the collected data is used to LATER data mine sources containing additional data about users. the data alone can only identify the phone and not the person's name or address.
iPhone 5 with a micro-usb connector, nice. or is it? The USB spec does not account for the watts required to charge most smart-phones while in operation, only with screen off. That means either very slow charges, or that they can't actually use the USB logos and advertise them as such.
I'm all for a standard connector, and a standard charger capable of numerous voltages to support an array of devices (as the iPad and iPhone wal-warts can do), and phones that accept variable voltage input, but choosing a system limited to 5w is simply dumb. I'd have quickly preferred they standardize on the iPhone dock connector instead of USB. Better than charging, a universal multi-purpose port would have been a better idea, and could apply to many more devices than just phones.
I'm an IT consultant and systems architecture designer. I've been in more than a hundred data centers large and small in the last 5 years alone, and I can quickly tell you that if it wasn't for MS Exchange, SCCM, windows desktops, and AD, there's be little MS in data centers today at all. Every data center I've been inside of within the past 3 years that had more than 20 servers had a larger Linux and/or Unix footprint than MS. The major players today run almost entirely on Linux. The largest datacenter I've consulted on recently had more than 3600 servers 4 years ago, 80% Windows and now has less than 300 remaining Windows boxes in their data center.
Microsoft lost the server war. They remain the king in messaging, monitoring, desktop deployment and management (only because windows is still the king in desktops but even that's shifting), as well as some key systems like CRM, finance, and some legacy apps. SQL is losing to the competition, File servers are now almost exclusively linux, same for print systems, even authentication has moved more to LDAP on UNIX with AD simply hung off of it. If it's a generic server, its Linux now. If its a new server, the question becomes "is their a linux app available or in development I can use instead" when offered an app that runs on Windows only. Only the mom-n-pop farms continue to deploy MS servers by default, the enterprises deploy MS when apps require it, with rare exception.
Exchange is the only real anchor keeping them in the server business. Share-point as well has an impact, but usually only if Exchange is also deployed, everything else is to support desktops, users, and file security. If a realistic competitor to Exchange and SharePoint came around, MS could loose the servers entirely...
"suspended production" and "canceld the product line" are very different things. They may have suspended while they wait to retool the firmware and ship units ready for sale out of the box, or it could VERY likely mean they made more than can be reasonably sold based on demand in the interim, or a combination of the two. It does not mean they "won't" make more, it just means they have enough that the plant is currently making OTHER things, for now.
Now, with double the price point of the competition, certain limitations vs the competition (granted with some benefits the others lack), and with no content deals in place causing the units to be blocked left and right by providers and content owners (which will probably happen again even if they bypass what's currently blocking them), its a doomed product line...
Google tried to sidestep the agreements Apple, Roku, Boxee and others put in place. The industry laughed at them. If you have one, and still have the option, I'd be returning it immediately were I you. The options from the competition actually work NOW, and will likely continue to work and be improved going forward. There is no reason to stick with Google's hardware unless you;re already stuck with no option for return.
The cables in general should be released, provided they're redacted such to remove the names of companies, geographic location of valuable things, and names of individuals. Further, the cables should be scrubbed and classified properly for relation to ongoing international issues for matters of national or international security and active efforts in the field necessary to keep secret.
The classified terms on any documents restricted to certain eyes should always expire based on a variable time frame, not a fixed amount. For example, if something was classified because it involved an action in planning or that had not yet happened, it should only be classified until such a time as the action became public.
That said, certain communication over cable is no different than in a room with a person. If its an official communication, it should equally be documented either way, and unless it requires classification for tripping a clearly documented rule, the conversation should be released. However, if it is unofficial communication; the tossing around of ideas not really viable to be implemented, maybe it should not be. People put bad ideas on the table during open discussion, and that has no bearing on the public impact of that discussion. Also, politicians HAVE to be free to discuss even unpopular ideas, and have those conversations maintained as private. So long as what the Government is DOING and PLANNING is out in the public eye, we really should not concern ourselves with what they're brainstorming on they have no intent of actually turning into an action, unless it's related to an ongoing action or public concern. This is magnified when comments can be easily taken out of context and presented in colored lighting by propagandists and lobbyists.
It's not DLNA, not even close.
1) DLNA is not open, its members only, AirPlay is open, and is no longer "just apple." Just because apple had a hand in it, is it bad? (USB, 1394, DisopayPort, I can easily go on).
2) DLNA is not free, AirPlay is free to all registered devs.
3) AirPlay supports every DLNA core codec, plus Motion JPG, giff, tiff, AAC, HE-AAC, WAV, and actually supports DRMed files as well, plus, it supports any codecs an app can decode and feed into the transfer on the fly, which DLNA does not support (since there is not app SDK for DLNA software yet, only hardware level integrated support). The only codec AirPlay does not support is MPEG4 part 2 (divx) but that can be wrapped into MPEG4 part 10 (H.264) without actually having to recode the video (it takes seconds, and has no impact on the video quality at all, it does NOT involve trans-coding into a new format, just a new carrier format)
DLNA is a money maker, like FLV or MPEG before it was opened up. It is not a free platform, and we, the community, should be AGAINST it, not trying to support it.
Security is one concern. Apple really doesn't care about the hacker community of OS X or iOS (they have a long tradition of openly supporting tinkerers, just not those who SELL stuff). the CARRIERS have the issue with hacking, and Apple has an issue with any published exploitable security vulnerabilities, so between the two it looks like cat and mouse hacker chasing, but it;s just the way it has to be.
Other concerns are: there is no file system... It;s a data space, but it is not a traditional file architecture, there's no file browser, no file permission system, it doesn't even have "user" accounts so to speak. It can import from SD through a dongle (which has the bulk of the FAT32 knowledge and USB stack info in its own dedicated chip), and being a dongle, it gets them around some licensing issues with port support, but adding either to iOS is a BIG deal on a software and licensing standpoint.
But really, it's the cloud. You can't bring media generically in and out of an iPad (because of restrictions the content providers place on apple for permitting the mere existence of iTunes, not Apple's own choices), it has to live in a database, and prevent ANY form of copying music from a PC, to iOS, and then to someone ELSES PC. This makes most use of USB for file transfers limited to just that, files. small things just as easily e-mailed as copied to a stick, let alone through that giant datacenter they just spend a $B in NC....
...and then there's structural reasons. Without a dramatic change to the bezel, neither USB mini or SD fit physically on the edge of the device...
That ended in March. only seven were initially thrown out, but in April, it was pretty much made clear not a single one could hold up in court. Though 20% of the genome has an in-effect patent on it right now, they're all drawing dead.
to hold up, there can't just be a patent on an existence of something, there must be a PROCESS, machine, or action. A DNA sequence is a static thing. You CAN patent a PROCESS to ALTER the genome, or perform some action against the DNA, but you can not patent a "discovery." A vaccine, chemical product, man made protine sequence, or cDNA sequence created from DNA, yea, that's an invention. Isolating a genome, that is not.
...until it has been successfully restored.
I work as an analyst and constant. I can;t tell you the number of companies i've worked with that had $100,000+ backup systems, and still would routinely fail to recover anything more than a simple file or folder and would often fail to even do that.
Great, you ran a backup. Now:
- did you check the backup log for success?
- Is the size of data backed up consistent with the size of the data? (unmounted disk, typo in path, permission issues, etc)? Some "successes" are simply because it failed to find files it could not back up, but it if could not SEE the files, it doesn't know it failed... Go on, remove "system" read and write permission from directories, when your backup runs as system, and see what happens, lol.
- do you have the install media offsite too? license keys? ADSR passwords?
- do you know what order to recover things in? documented prerequisites, patch versions, etc?
I just helped a company finish a DR plan for 5 servers. It took 10 weeks of planning, testing building parallel systems, the writing of several scripts, and creation of a 120 page manual. They had a 3 day SLA for recovering this system, and The first recovery attempt took 16 days while we found all the bugs in the process. The 3rd test took 4 days, and had over 350 individual steps in the process. By the 9th week, we had that down to 4 hours and less than 80 typed commands or other steps. Week 10 they did it off site in a non-eventful DR test. This server system, which is just 1 component of a major infrastructure of more than 60 servers, but one critical to real-time business, was a system a dozen people supported daily, 4 of which knew inside and out, and yet could not recover on their own from simple file backups until we identified critical system settings, hidden files, mismatched versions, inconsistencies in the builds, and more.
If you have a backup, great. Now actually try to restore it in a secured VLAN, see how far you get. I've done this a hundred times, and short of recovering VMDKs to to VM infrastructures, or baremetal images to identical hardware, no company has ever successfully restored a single system inside of an SLA in a DR test if they had never practiced that recovery before. not ONE.
A folder structure, that's easy. Data inside of a database, that's easy. A fully functional system, top to bottom, exactly as it existed before a crash, on new hardware? you better test that........
First, an optometrist will tell you, the easiest way to get eye strain is to read in bright light, you should not do that unless necessary. Next, if you insist on reading even in harsh sunlight, its usually pretty easy to find a glare free angle for extended reading, simply by choosing to move you ass to a more advantageous spot. There are also polarized covers available for most screens and tablets that make reading outdoors much easier.
Battery life of an iPad, with screen on, WiFi on, BT on, and 3G enabled is 10 hours of video playback. It;s more than 12 hours of screen-on time under less strenuous activity, and you can easily get 14 hours of reading continuously on an iPad simply by turning off the radios. If you need to read more than that during a single day, 30 minutes on a USB port can add another 4-5 hours. Standby time (with wifi enabled) of the iPad pushed 30 days.... Compared to an iPhone, why. Its for short reading. If you plan to have a phone and an e-book appliance, you compare it to having a phone and a tablet device, not just a phone. That said, I've done 4+ hour reading sessions on my smartphone on planes and in waiting rooms, and had no issues. i spend 2+ hours a day reading blogs and technical documents on it as it is.
3.5" is small, yes. It's not a reading appliance, its a phone that you can use in a pinch to read stuff. If your primary motivation is books and extended reading, you;re right, it's not the right use case, and you need a real book, an e-reader, or a tablet. That said, you should not have compared a kingle to an iPhone, you should have compared it to a 7 ot 10" ultralight tablet or competing e-reader.
Amazon doesn't prohibit, ePUB prohibits. It's a terms of the ePUB licensing that a device with firmware support for ePUB may not support proprietary encryption or DRM schemes and also support ePub. iOS and other systems get around this because the ebook reader is an app on an OS, the kindle is a device and the reader is part of the firmware.
Amazon was informed of this, and chose their own DRM anyway, which is why they can't support iBooks, ePub, and a number of other ebook formats. they figured if they locked it down, ePub would loose the war and they'de get to license out their protocol. nope...
If you like to loan and borrow books, just don;t buy a kindle. I prefer physical books (for many, many reasons, of which loan/sale/trade is only 1 reason), but if I was to choose a reader based on format, it would be iOS. Since I also happened to do an exhaustive review of 4 different e-reader platforms, I can also reccomend that unless all your reading in in well or bright lit rooms, avoid e-ink. Most people actually read in dim and poor light most of the time (living room at night, bed, train, etc), and e-ink is notably poor in low light.
We want 3D TV, but we do NOT want 3D TV at excessive additional cost, and not with glasses that cost more than $2 each that require their own power sources.
Get RealD deployed on more TVs (it's on at least one now), using the exact same glasses I get in the movie theater, and I'll have an interest if it add less than $200 to the cost of a TV (regardless of TV size). Adding a circular polarizing LCD layer on top of the existing screen is really not that hard.... the issue mostly is the licensing. the tech costs about as much as 2-3 pairs of glasses, we've already proven it works, and hopefully we'll see many more of these RealD TVs at CES.
Also, release some frelling content already!
Oh, and don't even bother marketing 3D on TVs smaller than 40" and produce a handy guide letting people know just how big that TV should be based on seating distance to get an optimal effect. (a 47" TV in my living room would suck for 3D, but in my loft would work well. I don't need a 60" TV in the living room for comfortable viewing, 47" is fine, but a 3D effect is lost on a 47" screen when I'm sitting 10' or more from it... it must extend at least a little into your peripheral range to have a noticeable impact)
I designed and sold HP ProCurve and Cisco side by side for the largest multi-state distributor and installer in the region. The vast majority of our local schools, government offices, hospitals, and medium businesses went the HP way based on price, but also based on higher availability configuration options, better modular designs, lack of SPOF in switches, lifetime warranties, and more.
We deployed million in HP gear, and millions in cisco gear. In several cases, we co-deployed solutions from both in heavy performance testing, and the HP switches routinely outperformed their Cisco counterparts at half the cost.
Earlier Procurve stuff before and shortly after the Foundry acquisition were not as good. The stuff made in the last 3 years or so however is awesome gear. Its easy to set up, the management suite is far superior, they use 100% open protocols, they're more configurable, and we even found the regional support to be better. When we first started selling HP, we were at the time the largest Cisco reseller in our area of the country, and even though we made less profit per sale on HP, within 2 years we were outselling Cisco 2 to 1. Of our several hundred clients who bought Hp systems, they continue to be good HP customers, and have never looked back to Cisco. The majority use BOTH Cisco and HP systems in the same network. On state contract, ProCurve is the preferred brand, and they have to specific reasons why Cisco would be required in place of HP in order to qualify for state money towards infrastructure upgrades.
Cisco makes great gear, but HPs gear is as good if not better, their prices are better, their configuration options are better, its easier to make medium networks more resilient and immune to single component failures, and they're easier to manage. I've never encountered issues with HP switch software or firmware unless someone actually screwed up the installation (which I see just as frequently with people failing Cisco setups too). If you use the central management tools, it;s even easier to keep all the switches on the same software revisions, and identify configuration problems, something Cisco makes you buy seperately and charges a small fortune to license anualy.
This ruling guaranteed you can use the net for what you want (unless a court orders some site or another actually be taken down or that the content is in fact illegally online, but that's for the court and due process, not the FCC or ISP, and we LIKE it that way, they stayed OUT of classifying legal content and left it to the courts).
Tiered internet, based on speed provided and use cases for that speed will be the prevailing method. no content filtering, no priority for content (other than subscriber services separate from general internet, like true IPTV, VoIP, subscriber VPN, etc, which are already treated separate in all other mediums). You'll get the speed you pay for, and based on how they market the intended use of that speed, any caps that exist have to be equally reasonable accommodating that use case.
They can't charge extra because you access services hosted on peering networks instead of internal customers.
That said, they do agree, Wireless is a different beast. they applied the CONTENT controls and openness ideals, but Wired has a major advantage, it can augrade at will, and in piece by piece fashion. (they can roll out docis 3 to you without breaking everyone else on the node). Wireless is FCC limited in expansion, and new technologies have to be deployed in parallel, no over the same airspace. They also have unique requirements to guarantee that airspace is free for calls and not crippled by downlaods, and they also need to be able to provide real-time and near-time services (like GPS map data, alerts, SIP requests, etc) in priority over passive data like a download or steaming video.). They're given a bit more leeway. The communication and data feeds are not just used by citizens alone, but by government agents, cops, emergency service, and more. Businesses and governments have leased lines and B2B connections on land-line, but there is no wireless equivalent for them, and 911 wireless services have to be equally ensured. They really do need more granular managemnt, so long as they filter ALL related data, and never by provider of the data, and only when necessary to relieve bottlenecks (not all the time), then it;s not discriminatory at all, and people who understand the technology differences between simlpe switched packet networks and open air wireless protocols get that, and agree.
As defined by a court levying a verdict against a specific defendant or company. they can not simply rule that "P2P" is unlawful "content" because it is not content, it is a protocol that CARRIES content.
Also, the FCC washed their hands of determining legality, that is the job of the courts alone. If a judge orders the site taken down, and/or sanctions against it, or for national security a warrant is issued to block content pending a trial, then the ISP could choose at that point to block it, but ONLY then. The FCC has no power to order sites legal or illegal, neither does congress. Some sites operating outside of the jurisdiction of the USA, but determined by US courts to be hosting illegal content, could be ordered blocked by court action.
Any ISP blocking content that has not been ruled explicitly illegal in advance would be subject to MASSIVE civil penalties. This is not a loophle and ISP or the FCc or even the govenment can exploit, since "illegal" is a term that can only be applied after guilt of an individual or company is confirmed in a court of law.
The authority the FCC used against Comcast was rooted in a different section of legislation, and based on a rule they had not even PASSED yet. They tried to use a document of "principles" based on title 2 regulations covering wire-line carriers. They tried to apply "dumb pipe" principles to network systems tat were not classified under title 2.
In THIS case, they're applying anti-discrimination rules, and in such ways that preserve carrier status. Its the same set of rules upheld by the supreme court (a higher authority than a DC circuit judge), for similar regulations over TV and cable systems (equally not title 2).
This will hold up in court. They worked heavily with judges in multiple districts, as well as nods from the supremes, to ensure the language did not overstep their bounds as they dd previously.
Last time, they had a "principle" not a rule, but tried to enforce it as a rule with punishments. this time, as they are chartered to do, they;re making specific rules, and they do have to power to enforce them.
The formation of the FCC initially survived supreme court oversight, and similar rulings against content discrimination by the people who servre but did not create the content has equally been upheld. This is an anti-competitive and pro-consumer measure, and it has a long history of supprot int he courts.
Since you;ve never had one, you've clearly never taken to typing on it. I borrowed one for slightly longer than a week during an extended and in depth comparison on several e-readers. After just a few hours with it, i was typing on it at near my physical keyboard speed, and had no issues writing a several page article on it, not typing long forum posts or complex e-mails. I can hit about 80wpm on a full keyboard, about 65 on a laptop keyboard, and I was hitting about 55 on the iPad, with little practice. On netbook keyboards, i fall under 50wpm, so to me it was BETTER than an ultraportable's cramped layout. With time, and getting used to auto-complete (which i think should be ported to desktop OS as well), i could easily hit 60-65wpm if I tried.
Do i "like" typing on it? compared to a full keyboard, hell no. compared to a laptop keyboard, I dislike them both about equally. Did it get in the way of my productivity? barely enough to report, and over time that would change to a "no."
Why have an ebook reader that is JUST an ebook reader? I can not only read on an iPad, i can edit a word doc, respond to an e-mail on the commute to work, play a quick game, watch a video or podcast at lunch, watch a TV episode while the wife is watching some other boring show without having to leave the living room to do it and hear her bitch about how I'm not helping watch the kids, it's SO much more than an ebook reader. Heck, we slung it from the back of the drivers seat and played a few Disney movies for the kid on a road trip while I had it. The longer I had it, the more uses i found for it. I did an exhaustive demo of the Kindle, kindle 2, Nook, and iPad, and recently added the Tab to that cycle. the ONLY one I regretted giving back at the end of the week was the iPad. the only reason i don't have one yet is we're in the process of buying our house from it's owner, and cash flow is restricted.
I know people who use them to do business presentations, access CRM systems, review documents (which is SO much nicer on a Portrait display than a notebook, let alone a netbook or ultra-portable), deal with the flood of e-mail, and a dozen other things with them. I know a lot of people who simply shifted from having an ultra-portable plus a "real" notebook, plus a machine at home to simply having an iPad and one good laptop they rarely lug around. I know several who just abandoned the notebook al together and use only a desktop PC now with the iPad. the iPad can do 80% or more of what most people do in a day well, and most of the rest with little trouble.
A week with the Tab, btw, cramped virtual keyboard, no productivity apps suited to the larger screen (no good productivity app at all to compete with Pages or keynote), PenTile AMOLED screens suck for reading text, and the battery dies too quick. If it was 9-10", with twice the battery and Android 3.0 it might fly as a real competitor, but it was little more than a big android phone without a phone and certainly no help on the productivity front, and the poorest e-reader i reviewed.
As for e-readers, if all you're looking for is reading, and are looking to spend a very small amount of money, or you do most of that reading outdoors in bright light (where optometrists tell you NEVER to read due to heavy eye strain issues) i can recommend an e-ink based system (i preferred the nook to the kindle options, but only because it was a more open platform not locked solely to Amazon's book store). That said, if you read regularly in poor lighting (subway, dim lit rooms, in bed, etc), stay the hell away from e-ink. Although very sharp in normal light, and a bit less effected by bright light (though it was still effected), e-ink was the worst performer in sub-ideal lighting conditions, i even liked the AMOLED screen better in the dark. If you can spend a bit more, a used or refurn iPad is a better bet, especialyl if you don;t already have an ultraportable and are interested in doing anything at all more than reading.
Big deal, you have to give them an account number with your bank. ...and then you can disable electronic access to that card allowing only "available balances" in an iTunes account or gift card to be used, protecting you from yourself.
Apple's not going to ring up charges on your card just because they have it, and because they have it, they're subject to a myriad of federal regulations and security requirements to protect it (further backed up by both Visa itself and your bank, protecting you from fraudulent charges).
To have just about anything today, you have to have a credit or debit card. Electronic billing for pretty much any utility, service, online game, subscription, etc requires you have a card. Getting one from your bank is effortless since it's not a secured debt, and thus there is no credit check. Worst case, you can always go to your local grocer and buy a re-loadable Visa Gift card and use THAT.
The only people who need to jump through hoops to get an iTunes account are a) illegal immigrants and others who can;t legally open a bank account, and b) paranoids with no understanding of modern banking rules or the protections in place over your money, and even those two groups need only buy a disposable credit card...
use a disposable visa gift card, or follow the process noted in apple's own help forums for creating an account without a credit card.
Why are you paranoid about giving apple information about you anyway? Their data protection is top notch, and audited multiple times per year to be in compliance with the strictest federal security policies, the EXACT same policies btw your own bank has to follow. Your personal data is no more at risk on Apple's servers than in BoAs (arguably more so given the number of breeches BoA has incurred, and Apple has not). That said, I bet you;ve bought at least something online before, and have accounts with your real data registered with several sites using your real ID, and since those sites almost certainly only do credit processing and never store your CC numebr, they're not bound by the same tight security rules apple is, so your personal data is, I'm sure, already out there and at higher risk of theft than simply having an iTunes account.
If you don;t like iTunes, thats OK. Most people don't. however, don;t fault the fact you have to provide ID of some kind in order to have an account authorized to make purchases (free or not, they have to have something to bind the DRM the content providers force them to use to).
The fact the iPad has a full keyboard, not just a cramped virtualized system of hard to hit keys, makes typing actually quite comfortable. I don't own an iPad, but a good friend does, and I proved to myself the keyboard was easy enough to use by borrowing it and typing a days worth of NaNoWrimo content on it (about 4500 words). It was a tad slower than a physical keyboard, but once I got over habits like trying to manually capitalize the first letters of words and just let the iPad do it for me, it was fine.
it also does support an array of keyboards, and dragon is an amazingly accurate speech recognition system.
That said, you completely miss the point of the device. It's not for composing lengthily business replies to dozens of e-mails, its for quickly sorting through the email clutter and getting to important emails. If something is critical, you'll boot up the lappy or go find a desk, but sitting on the couch, reading a book or watching a video or perusing some sites, or using instant on to quickly check something on the front of your mind you'll forget by the time the lappy boots.
Is it as nice as a real keyboard? hell no. If you frequently find need for one, BT keyboards can be found for $30 and fit in your pocket easy enough.
No, the power of a companion computing device like this is you can do all the little things that would otherwise require a laptop for comfort without having to pull one out (and deal with it). My wife has a laptop, i don't (one from work only, and I don't use it for casual access). I have a gaming PC at the house. When we're traveling, I'd LOVE to have this in place of getting a full fledged laptop (and the hundreds in software licenses and hours of trouble it costs) just so i could "play" online in comfort when she's otherwise using her machine.
Single most killer feature: instant on. Runner up, ultra-portable with a 10 hour battery. It does things netbooks and most laptops can't as well (including pretty decent quality 3DF gaming)
its a niche market, not a major market, and because YOU have no intent of spending $400-700 on a companion device has no impact on the fact than several MILLION people did actually consider that a good deal, and found use cases for the device that met its value.
Arguing that because you won;t buy it, or you don;t see the value proposition has no impact on the very real fact that others do, enough to make the product and for it to be massively popular and successful. Should BMW stop making cars just because average Joe will never buy one?
if they dare apply this to George R R Martin's work in the Song of Ice and Fire saga. There's rape of children, consensual sex with children, rampant incest, and depravity galore in those books. I can;t wait to see how they're handling this on HBO (I know many of the characters have already been "aged" to handle some of it).
but there are laws about how, where, and to who that content can be sold. I don't think this is amazon getting involved personally in this decision, I'm thinking this was an unfriendly phone call from a few state AGs letting them know they might want to repeal some of what they were selling in violation of that state's law, but it was kept under the table if Amazon quietly complied.
Apple doesn't sell porn not because Steve is a prude, but because dealing with local pornography sale legislation is more complex than dealing with tax collection, has ridiculously severe penalties, and pretty much most of it can;t be applied to simple online transactions. They have physical outlets in those states, so what mail order firms can do to get around state laws, they can not.
See, its not the complainers who do lobby against amazon, it;s the ones who successfully already lobbied to their state legislatures, creating an array of complex and differing by state laws covering how porno material is legally allowed to be displayed, advertised, and sold. In most states, especially in the south, its harder to buy porn than it is to buy liqueur. Since amazon has a physical footprint in that state (distro warehouses and/or offices), and is bound to collect taxes and obey local laws in those states, they have to follow local laws. Taxes are one thing, as they apply mostly equally to all items sold in that state, but porno rules are complex, and don't easily apply to Amazon, or Apple's, electronic sales processes. So, they simply ban it (and gain favor in elderly and church communities, and with some parents).
As with Apple, the "no porn" issue is not exactly one of parental motivation, its a matter of dealing with a myriad of laws covering controlled sale of porn material, including requirements to validate age, proper display of the material, or outright bans on certain content, which are made worse when trying to compare state to state.
As for online-only or mail order sales, most of these laws don't apply, but because Apple has retail outlets in (is it every state now?) most states, its more complicated. Amazon has distribution facilities in a dozen or more states as well.
This is all the fault of Republican Christian Zombie Vampires, oh and Tipper Gore too.
I heard nothing more confirming than a "display manufacturing plant" and no details on the specific panels or sizes either would make.
I know Apple is pushing to get tech used in their 11 and 13" MBAs into larger laptops and desktops, I'd be very surprised if a significant portion of the investment did not go there as well.
Just because you sell your software at BestBuy, how does that preclude you also selling at Walmart, or Amazon, even at lower prices. Should BestBuy be able to sue Amazon for undercutting their business?
The right to sell is not Steam's, it's the content producer, and unless they signed an exclusivity contract with Valve, nothing prevents them from offering the same product to other companies to also sell.
If apple started signing deals forcing people to only sell in their store (which they expressly state will never be the case, and we have no reason to believe otherwise, they don't sue for devs selling apps in Cydia), or explicitly not in steam, we might be able to call foul, but not antitrust You actually have to have a monopoly to be accused of anti-trust. We could not only easily argue that filing suit showed that valve was the monopoly trying to prevent competition in the market-space, but that only applies if you consider the online distribution of apps to be a market unto itself (it is not, the software market OVERALL is where monopoly and anti-competitive laws come into play, including brick and mortar and everything).
The internet is not exactly know for making finding what you want easy, and is cluttered by advertisers and paid promotions to put what THEY want in front of you.
Also, there's very little trust in what you may find. This puts a trust relationship and consolidated library of titles into the hands of the people that barely trust themselves online (or are too damn dumb to know they shoudl distrust it), let alone putting trust in companies they don't know that install software on their machines.
This is the perfect solution for 90% of the people buying software. The internet is still there, this does not replace it, nor is their any restriction forcing those who sell in the app store to sell ONLY in the app store (they can still run their own sites, direct downloads, sell on shelves, nothing changes there). This is just an easy (and safe) way for people who don't even know what to go looking for in the first place to find new apps, and have a community of people rating apps that can be trusted at least a bit more than a site claiming all on its own their product is good.
They have to simply use a common installer platform, that's it. This installer is already in use by hundreds of apps, the app store just uses scripting that only supports that one installer process. You can install to the path of your choice, limit app to single users or make them available to all, move them, delete them, etc. Apple is only insisting on the use of a specific installer, no use of 3rd party DRM, and patching through a central service only (oh, and no porn, but that's NOT a parenting issue, that's a not having to deal with local laws related to selling porn by a company that also has brick and mortar stores inside states that regulate the sale of adult content, nobody gets that...).
Any app installed to OS X has to follow what the kernel lets it do, not what apple might "like" it to do (or as people keep claiming apple "loves" to restict). Look, Apple only restricted iOS for a few reasons: to placate carriers so they could get the best deals wireless carriers ever offered in history and force them to deploy things like visual voicemail; to comply with laws regarding preventing the sale of things they know violate IP of others; to comply with local and international laws regarding sale of items in general, and for not bloating the shit needlessly out of an OS designed to run on a CPU 1/4th as powerful as what's shipping now. OS X needs no such restrictions (other than protection from IP and viruses), and apple has no reason to restrict, and take the bad press for doing so.
since you actually have to have a position of power in a market, and use that power to stifle competition, neither of which are the case here even potentially in the future, there's no anti-trust or anti-competitive issues at stake here. The only chance of that is if apple enforced a "you can only sell i there" policy (which is already clearly upheld in case law as illegal, so they won't try that).
Pushing a function by pre-installing did not even get Microsoft in trouble in the USA with IE. (it did in europe, but all they have to do is offer the option on installation of alternatives). Even then, IE WAS the king, and used that position aggressively. If apple auto-installed the store (it will in fact be optional to install via the auto-updater, though it will be included by default in 10.7), then all they would have to do is advise of alternates during install, and provide a way to remove it (which is as simple as dragging to the trash in OS X).
Vale attempting to sue apple for entering the market as a fair competitor, or if Valve tried to bully app vendors into not supporting apple's store or working out long term exclusivity deals, that could be seen as anti-competitive...
We MUST protect the right of a new business to enter the market. If you;re arguing that valve has the right to protect their monopoly, I think you just joined the wrong side. valve should have accounted in their business model that they might have to compete with more than brick and mortar eventually, and if they failed in that, too bad for them...
Those people were genius, but they had the marketing skills of a 5 year old with a lemon-aid stand. Novel had the technology to own the computing world, they just had no clue how to make people SEE that. It was really a no-brainer in the 3.x 4.x days, novel WAS the best, but they dropped the ball on desktops, and government bidding, and MS won.
novel has basic OS level patents that are still very much in effect today. It was pretty much tier ONLY income. Put those patents in Apple or Microsoft's hands, people that know how to develop products people want, and it can only make money.
Actually though, most of these patents will allow kernel level changes to the OS, file systems, could communication, networking, and more. novel was sitting on good tech they could not afford to build systems for, but also could not afford to share or quicken their demise. It was loose-loose for them and win-win for everyone else.
it's about basic OS functions, and for EMC especialyl file system management and networking.
the people at novel were geniuses, and invented some of the best stuff in the OS world, stuff that STILL has yet to be outdone. they just could not market their way out of a paper bag, and they died.
But Novel patented a metric f*ton of stuff in the early OS design days, things even Microsoft has had to work around, not to mention file system patents, basic networking stuff, and a slew of hardware patents. Mobile stuff? virtually none.
No, this isn't so much about anti-Google, this is about moving their own desktop OS and Server OS platforms forward. Google isn't even the slightest player in markets for these patents.
Now, the Nortel sale of patents in process: THAT is all about communications.... I am HIGHLY interested in seeing what apple plans to do with access to the mother-load of VoIP, IP Phone, SIP, communication servers, VRU systems, and other patents. With Apple's existing portfolio merged with much of Nortel's, they could become a major force in the corporate/enterprise communication world.
the initial investment in a 360 is in fact substantially less than a PS3, or so they'll have you believe... but to get an equivalent of what you get in the box from Sony on Microsoft's platform actually costs more if you have even a single game that is played online.
Starting with the console:
PS3: $299 base or $399 320GB with move.
360: $299 base only 250GB and with Kinect its $399 as well. ? though this was cheaper, oh well... Yes, you can get a 4GB model cheap, but you can't do much of shit with it, and replacing the HDD costs more than simply buying the $299 bundle. You have to add more controllers to PS3 for move, so its maybe $120-150 more expensive for 4 player motion gaming, but the starter price is the SAME (unless the arcade is all you want)
controllers: about the same price either side. xbox models don't typically come with rechargeable batteries. (ones that do exceed PS3 controller prices most times)
Accessories: PS3 supports almost anything blue-tooth. xBox supports almost exclusively it's own licensed items.
Upgrades: PS3, basic HDDs. xBox, ridiculously overpriced custom disks.
DRM: One purchase, multiple PS3s. Multiple xBoxes? buy it multiple times...
Blu-Ray: PS3 yup, xBox nope.
Online play: PS3 free, xBox $50/year.
Software updates: free on both platforms, PS3 if you pay $50/year (which also gives you about (realistically) $20 worth of games you might want and 180 you don't, access to hulu plus, and discounts in the PSN store), they auto-install while it sleeps.
I know 9 people with 360s, and 4 with PS3s. Every single PS3 owner has invested less in their console than the xBox fans, and that's not even including money wasted by all almost all of them have swapped an xBox chassis at least once to get a better model (new ones have better CPUs, HDMI, and options older ones do not have, all PS3s are essentially the same, aside from 1st editions with emotion chips).
xBox costs more. there's little argument.
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