Posts by Michael C

Sony PlayStation Network vs MS Xbox Live

Here is is boys n girls

They both offer an online experience, and have some pros and cons. here's the code difference:

MS sells a game console. Sony Sells a Home Multimedia Entertainment System.

XBL is decidedly games focused, specifically focused around cooperative multilayer experiences, and also for hooking up with strangers, and it costs money to play. PSN is free to play, and is focused on the game experience itself, ad unifying family and friends (not random strangers), except within specific-game settings.

XBL provides a slightly better price on games, but worse on content. PSN has more content, and better prices, and is slightly more shallow on games. Since the xBox is billed as an arcade system, and Sony as an entertainment system, the el-cheapo games are not exactly highlighted on PSN, they're looking to move real titles.

The 360 uses XBMC, which is not bad for playing content from your PC, and is a simple interface. PS3 not only plays the content from your PC and Mac, and other sources, it has significantly more entertainment options in addition.

360 plays only digital content, PS3 plays all that, and more MS does not provide, plus DVD and Br video.

I heard someone argue once (not that I necessarily agree) PS3 is for deep gaming experiences and improving the enjoyment overall of being in your living room. 360 is for cheap quick thrills.

Popularity? xbox has it. Community? xbox has it. Price? well, PS3 is technically cheaper if you play games online... more so if you also had to buy a blue-ray player to sit beside your 360.

Oh, and my opinion (and yes, i used both extensively before coming to this conclusion), kinect sucks,nothing more than a novelty and a very limited experience and application to only some genres of games, and only new upcoming titles, and Move is actually more fun to play, has less lag, will have a larger game selection, and will be the winner of this war (unless MS also adds a handheld device to kinect).

BOFH: Who's been naughty and who's been nice?

Ah, warm fuzzies

Excellent work, keep em coming!

Froyo snuggles into cosy Nook

what good is it?

When i hear reviews like "performance isn't that good, but...." I need to stop and really think about such a device.

So, i go to the B&K specs page for the Nook Color. Hmm, no specs for the CPU or RAM are listed at all on the SPECS page... I had to find it elsewhere. It's an A8 Arm from TI, clocked at 800MHz, the same CPU and GPU and RAM as the Droid 2 is equipped. It is an IPS panel, covering 1024x600, however the GPU can only actually handle 854x480 and the image is hardware scaled to the larger screen (big time bummer).

Its also only a 14.8wH battery, which they claim gets "8 hours, with wifi off" and they specify the reading was taken on "selected systems" and "user life expectancy may vary based on device settings" and they explicitly leave out mention of the backlight settings and back-grounded apps. ...and that was with pre-froyo, a known battery hog... This is half the iPad's battery and on a CPU that uses equal power and a screen that can't be far off...

I expect to hear the thing has trouble lasting for 4-5 hours with WiFi on and the screen brightness set to even reasonable levels once Froyo is on it. Worse if people background a few apps.

It's got a nice IPS screen, and a halfway decent CPU (and underpowered GPU). Given the extra pixels, i suspect it won't perform as well as the Droid 2 running the same apps. It should be fine for people using it for text media and simple games, but if they think its going to handle the bulk of Android apps, let alone full screen flash or H.264 video, fact is, ic can't, and people are going to be dissapointed.

$250, yea, I might actually buy one once Froyo is officially supported (I'd be happier if it was 10" though). It's no iPad competitor, and I'd not recommend it to anyone looking for a media focused device, but it's sure going to steal thunder from the Galaxy Tab. It'll get hammered back down a bit when the ipad 2 is released in March/April, and the existing iPad drops to $399 (or less).

Virtual Server backup software ranked

wiat, what?

A sample pool of 30, of which only 24 responded? The error variance is what, 60%????

Look, if the sample pool is not at least 1% of the user base, covering at least 90% of the demographic cases, then it is complete BS. Why did this even get PRINTED???

Gmail's daddy predicts Chrome OS assassination

not surprised

ChromeOS doesn't actually need to exist. Its the apps it runs - HTML5 based programs - and the cloud behind it that made it attractive at all. If Android supports HTML5, and is already a solid and viable platform, then ChromeOS itself is unnecessary, and simply complicates the product offering.

I tell you what I'm really looking forward to: an iOS or Android phone, with NFC chips, and a slightly beefier hardware offering sold side-by-side with simple touchscreens having little more in them than an NFC chip. The single device (phone) is the brains, and goes with you everywhere, but, power on a larger portable tablet screen anywhere near it, and pair it up, and it;s an instant tablet with 100% of what's on your phone available to it, and maybe bringing a few extra features to the table (an SD slot, more storage, etc). I don;t need a tablet and a phone, i Need a phone with a touch OS and enough horsepower to run apps on a larger screen (ore better yet more than one concurrently!) that it offers by itself. Make the screen $200 and high quality (iPad or better equiv), but also ubiquitous, such that any screen would work with any NFC paired device. they'd be thinner, cheaper, and much lighter, and then you don;t need to manage them all seperately...

Prisoners plot strike action over mobile phones

PAID?!?!

it costs between $60 and $120 a day to incarcerate a prisoner in the USA depending on the prison, location, and type of incarceration.

If they want to be paid for their labor, we'll deduct it from that cost first (counting weekends and holidays too). We'll give them the fair wage a free man would get for the same job, deduct what taxes would come out of that wage, then apply the rest to their weekly incarceration costs. After that, if there's anything left, we'll move to covering the state or federal court costs of putting them there, and if a monetary award was given to a victim that remains unpaid, the rest goes there. Only after covering ALL of that can they have a single red cent for their time.

They committed a crime, and society as well as their victims incurred a cost for it. They're lucky we give them anything at all, and if i had my way, they'd ALL work as a condition of their sentence, or serve a longer one...

I can easily understand providing education to undereducated criminals, to enable them to re-enter the world standing on better footing. Simple skills, reading, math, economics, basic high school classes and basic trade school skills. Giving them access to college courses? television beyond news and educational TV? other perks? Some of these criminals live better lives than free people, and it has to stop. They're entitled to NOTHING, other than a roof, a mattress and pillow, heat in the winter months, food, water, and basic rehabilitation services during their stay. They should lead a quality of life about the same or lower than a new recruit in basic training. Strict hours, strict oversight, hard labor, and access to nothing that does not improve them as a person. Entertainment? that's right out.

Apple pulls jailbreak detection API

wrong.

1. Apple doesn't own your iPhone, in most countries the CARRIER does, until your contract expires or unless you bought the device unlocked and off-carrier. In the US, they can only order you to surrender your device if it is under a prorated contract and if they waive termination fees. If your contract terminates and you pay penalties, the device is yours.

2. Big companies do care very much for the law, and the government is accountable to the people. Trust me, i work in corporate and government IT security and compliance, and the policies are very clear. At least in the US, a company breaking the law is significantly more costly than compliance for companies. People think our government is evil, and has the power to do evil things, but honestly it;s just people, most of them fighting to keep their jobs, and under the watchful eye of other people, private auditors, other departments, other branches of government, and the courts. The rare few people in government who go against the law often fall hard, and publicly, and they're not hard to catch.

3. Apple only cares about security patching. They SUPPORT an open hacker community, gave away Darwin for free, love their hackintosh users (unless they try to sell products), and have made NO LEGAL ACTIONS against any of the underground markets or iPhone hackers (aside from those hacking Apple firmware onto non-apple devices with the intent to sell those devices). The very idea that apple is anti-hacker is patently false. The only people against jailbreak are the CARRIERS, who stand to loose significant revenue due to bypassing their ability to detect tethering, SMS messaging, unauthorized VoIP calling (the carriers now mostly approve of VoIP, but that's a recent policy change), and more.

You clearly don't understand government, you don't understand corporate motivations, you don't understand the power a consumer has, and you know nothing about what you;re speaking here. please, cease and desist further comments on this topic until you educate yourself.

read your own link next time

That issue is related to TAXATION differences on the apps sold in the various worldwide iTunes app stores. It is simply a policy that those apps are sold for non-commercial use (unless the distributor of the app otherwise approves business use later, which could run you afoul of local tax laws in some cases).

Also, Apple has a process in place for businesses to deploy their own apps internally, separate from the iTunes app store.

Your link only clarifies that 3rd partry apps are not for corporate use, and has no impact on whether the iPhone itself is a device for corporations or not.

They specifically have business phone plans, sell devices in bulk to business accounts, have processes for businesses to support and deploy their own apps, link into DOD STIG corporate audit and other enterprise policies, support enterprise messaging systems, and more. The iPhone is not only a business phone, it's only competition is RIM (dying) and WP 6.5 (dead) since Android does not meet even basic business requirements (and can never meet business and government security requirements in its current form).

The same policy is also listed in the Google marketplace, Microsoft's app store, and other inline markets. This is not a phone issue, it's a VAT issue on the sale of apps for different purposes.

Infinity Blade

you missed the memo

Epic Citadel was the proof of concept of the engine, with little more than a panning camera. they did not overlay a game logic on top of it. This is an entirely re-done system, getting a basic fighting engine up an running withing the unreal environment. AI logic for movement has to come later (if not P2P)

Keep in mind, this is the premiere game on this engine. non-rail versions of multiple games are coming soon, the engine has already been licensed "by multiple firms" for iOS development.

Apple iPhone 4 vs... the rest

As of October...

...that was actually 300,000 apps. so about 6,000 great apps. I can't name 600 for the Windows platform.

Also note, The Apple app store launched in July 2008, Android only 3 months and 2 weeks later in October 2008. Apple has 300,000 apps, Google 100,000. Apple did not have a massive head start here, less than 15 weeks. Still, 3 times the number of apps, and the lions share (80+%) of money exchanged for apps by users. Devs like it there; very low platform fragmentation, easy to use interface, low startup costs, limited hardware versions to test against, nice emulator, good pricing policies, and more viable users.

Even if android had twice the devices in the field (which it does not), the number of people who can buy a specific app in the android store would still be more limited, smaller and smaller for the higher quality of the app. Many games run exclusively on the most cutting edge devices, which is a very small pool. More over, those games may sell great now, but in 6-9 months, those devices likely won;t be running the newer version of Android that new games are being developed on, and may never be upgraded to support them. Its both a small and short lived client pool, expensive to code for (3-5 times the man hours costs if you ask most companies), and has far lower profit potential on top.

GREAT apps and very modern games are coming to iOS in droves, and every one of those dev teams keeps saying "Android is on the back burner, maybe we'll suppoty it one day but it;s not ready for us yet."

Carriers are pushing the devices because of a lack of alternatives, but WP7 is going to get a lot of marketing money, and Apple keeps adding carriers and expiring exclusivity deals. If you want to play games and have the best cutting edge apps, iOS is where the money is, and that's were the devs will be. The larger this disparity gets, the harder the Android commitment becomes. The more people disgruntled by manufacturers failing to upgrade their devices making the latest android aps available to them, the more people that will never buy another device from that company. This is a cycle either Google needs to step in and stop, cold, or the platform will die.

...and I like Android, and am considering a tablet as soon as 3.0 comes out.

just a phone?

NO, it's a SMARTPHONE. Anyone looking for "just a phone" buys "just a phone" and skips the $200 up front cost and $30 dataplan. People buy smartphones because they can do with one device what otherwise required both a phone and PDA (which even with blu- tooth never really talked on the same page) and often a laptop too.

As far as number of minutes of use, My smartphone is used 10:1 for apps vs calls. Maybe I'm a bit odd, only using 400-500 minutes per month average on it, but I'm on it several hours a day either browsing, reading, emailing, playing games, or communicating in some other way, and I'm not even counting playing music 6-8 hours a day, or using it as a GPS.

Android WAS selling faster, for 1 quarter. iPhone took the lead again, and it's still sold in only 60 worldwide markets to Androids 92, and there are free android phones available, BOGO offers, and more. A large number of these sales are carriers pushing the device, not customers asking for it. (go on, ask a Verizon rep for a "smartphone" and see if they recommend blackberry...). This is changing however, as they'll be pushing Windows Mobile 7 instead, since Microsoft is bending over and offering what the carriers want (locked devices, closed ecosystem, and they don't have to support the phone directly). In a year, no carrier who offers one or both of iOS and WP7 will push android, and there will be no special deals on that platform.

why

I sync to my desktop maybe once every 4-6 weeks. My contacts are synced in the cloud, as is my e-mail, I buy all my music and apps from the phone itself, and I play video over WiFi and over the web via VLC or Orb. The only reason to sync periodically is to move what I've bought into the PC (which could be downloaded again free anyway if i lost/broke the device), and to load new firmware.

iTunes manages my play-lists through dynamic controls, so all I have to do is either rate it, or set the genre of the artist/song, and its put into an appropriate play-list (or not). I hardly touch it at all.

Sure, on PCs iTunes is a bit slow, especially on cheap hard drives, but it it NOT the code, its NTFS itself that is the issue. They could fix the performance easily, but that would require what everyone objects to: a dedicated and proprietary database, and album art loaded only on demand. If you mount an NTFS volume to a Mac, migrate your iTunes folder contents and music to that volume, and try to run it, you'll see very similar drops in performance.

it depends on where u live

I'm on AT&T, have been since i was forced to leave both Verizon and Sprint (one work phone, one personal phone) since only one worked at home and only one worked at work, and both dropped calls like rain. Since my switch in mid 2008, I've dropped a grand total of 9 calls, and the wife has dropped 1. We've since moved, and there's a bit better Verizon access at our home, but a roommate moved in with Verizon, and by the time he moved out he switched to Sprint, citing DROPPED CALLS, even when he had 4 and 5 bars. I have batter call clarity with 1 or 2 bars than he has with 4.

For our office, there are 3 Verizon towers closer to the building than the one AT&T tower in range. We can actually SEE the Verizon tower, less than 1.5 miles away. Unless you're near a window, its useless. Even in the subfloor (basement) I get calls fine on AT&T, as well as in the elevators and in every part of the complex. Sprint put a microcell on the roof, but in the cafe 11 floors below, good luck getting a signal on that. AT&T works in all parts of the building, Verizon does not, and they have more towers and closer towers. More than 80% of the staffers have switched to AT&T, and most of them claim better signal at home after switching.

Microsoft joins protest against Google web travel buy

so...

...if you name a travel search provider other than Orbitz, Microsoft owns it, used to own it, is in the process of trying to own it, and/or is in an org with it.

Google comes along and tries to provide their own service, through one tiny firm Microsoft is not already in bed with, attempting to provide viable competition to the conglomerate of (probably illegally price fixing as a group) travel sites under Microsoft's control and Microsoft throws the anti-competitive red flag?

Did i read that right?

Angry Birds find new way to take your money

hmmm.

I just you-tubed the solution for any level I had issues with. I have 3 stars on every single level available on the original and the holidays version (accounting there's still half the December calendar still locked). If you have to pay to get past a level, you're doing it wrong. If there are levels that can not be beaten WITHOUT paying for them, it should be clearly documented that is the case, and transactions will be REQUIRED to complete the game (in which case I won't buy it).

Xbox 360 outsells PS3 2:1

agreed

We're buying a PS3 just after xmas, and it was very easy for me to decide on buying the PS3 separately from the move kit given the PS3 model I want is not offered with the bundle, and the value of the bundle is not radically different from the value of the 2 purchased separately. It really makes little difference either way.

As for xBox outselling PS3 2:1 in general, it's Christmas time, and the xBox is significantly lower in price and generally preferred by the younger generation to boot (older guys like me see the value in the PS3 and are more interested in the types of games available, not to mention its BR player).

Apple ditches Costco. Or vice versa. Or both

other reasons

1) warranty and return issues vs costco's own policies

2) return issues with customer's trying to screw Costco by product swapping (costco cashiers are not exactly geek squad, a lot slips by them)

3) not cheaper than any where else - not a reason to have a membership

4) people buying tech at Costco are not exactly tech-savvy shoppers

5) They sold iPods at Costcos?

Stealing credit card details via NFC is easy/pointless

Well....

1) if very few people have more than spare change in their pockets, criminals have less incentive to rob people.

2) no trips to ATMs/banks to refill cash supply

3) sales tax gets paid 100% of the time (no under the table deals)

4) Receipt trail (a card number can be used to look up a lost receipt, no such luck for cash), so I can always get proof of warranty later if i loose a receipt, and return things without one too.

5) I pay the same price either way, but i get points using the card, extended warranties, theft protection, and I can stop payment if I think I git screwed or they refuse a product return.

6) lost card != lost money (especially most that have fraud/theft protections on plastic too)

7) Merchant can't be given counterfeit money (and even fraudulent transactions are guaranteed to be paid to him if Visa approved it).

8) No "crap, i don't have enough cash on me" moments what waste time and turn into no-sale with customers (and also no "sorry you made that pizza, but i only have $5, so, throw it out I guess." moments either)

9) Merchant can't get robbed for as big a loss since less cash is on hand.

10) less time counting down the till, and less mistakes too.

11) harder for cashiers to pocket a transaction instead of ringing it through. (charge customer cash, cancel transaction at last second, pocket money, no longer possible).

12) costs the same, roughly, as processing a check, but is more secure and comes with guarantees for the merchant.

I can easily go on.

Join in the Wikileaks DDoS war from your iPhone or iPad

no

No, you can all cooperate and send an email. Even 1 per registered user per day is probably not an issue. the local mail server might clog up, even go down, or even the mail server trying to SEND all those messages might go down, but that is in fact a legitimate action ,and each message has a traceable trail.

Participating in DDoS is not a measure of communication (which by volume could be dissruptive) and it is not a single message, its thousands of messages, purposefully malformed, from thousands of locations, with no other purpose than to disrupt all manner of online business for the target.

Comparing an e-mail complaint to a DDoS is like comparing a letter to the editor to burning down a building.

If you are stupid enough to do this, i hope you get a nice letter from the DoJ after they back trace your IP, and you get nailed to the wall for 10,000 or a year in jail or more.

Microsoft wades into interwebulator chat about Hotmail

a quick list

1) god awful UI (not a good layout)

2) god awful UI (ads, too busy look/feel)

3) poor syncing options

4) poor import/export options

5) spam

6) poor search/filter

7) no message threading

8) browser support varies

9) more likely to be blocked/filtered than gmail by companies (for some odd reason)

10) lables, tagging

11) calendar integration

If they really wanted this to work, they'd just go ahead and make the hotmail interface the Outlook Mobile Web interface, and stick an add banner in there somewhere, set up the back end as exchange, and let you connect to it using exchange syncing services with any device that supprots it (and general IMAP for everything else), and provide the same security/filtering their exchange hosted service provides.

Live.com is a nice service, Office Web apps are great. hotmail should be merged, and Outlook's interface shoudl become the default.

iPad to lose weight, gain eye

4x? not quite

approx 4X would bring the resolution of the iPad up to the retina level, however, that resolution is one not even seen on 30" displays today. Likely we'll see a screen offering 900 vertical lines, possibly even a 4:3 equivalent capable of showing 1080p video (something close to 1200v lines and 1900-2100 wide).

An updated A4 with 1GB of RAM, a slight CPU bump to 1.4, and perhaps even the slightly next gen Marvel GPU could handle that resolution as equivalent frame-rates to the current screen. This is not a major jump, as the current hardware technically can handle 1080p already, just not while back-grounding too much, and it;s right on the edge of support. a 30 or 40% performance boost, and enough RAM to hold higher res textures, and it;s done.

what?

"Increasing the resolution risks fragmenting the iOS platform"

The iOS SDK has featured resolution independence for quite some time. There are essentially 2 "sizes" to worry about. 3.5" and tablet. The layout of the application needs to account for only those 2 modes, and the application scales in resolution quality outside of that. only people continuing to release apps containing bit-mapped images outside of using the tools available to them in Core Animation and OpenCL have issues with resolution changes, and that's only an image quality issue, not an application scaling issue.

A new screen resolution is a non-issue for the vast majority of apps being currently released.

Facebook boydroid to hand over theoretical riches to charity

he's got time.

The pledge is not to immediately donate, but simply to do so "before you leave this earth." He's 23. though i think he might make some sizable commitments, he's not giving away "half" anytime soon, unless he plans to give away half what he has today knowing he'll make ten times that later as opposed to giving away half his lifetime fortune as is the spirit of the gift.

Google morphs Gmail into Microsoft backup service

compliance I'm subject to

Here's one thing. Should, even by accident, we send an e-mail to an outside party that contains a client;s account, or SSN, we have a filter that catches that, and encrypts that data, and they have to request the key to open the e-mail (which we refuse if it was a mistake, as often happens sending messages back in forth in support to groups that may include outside contractors not screened to see that data). We not only have to encrypt it, but we have to log the even tare report it to auditors anyway. If we failed over to gMail, we could not do that.

Worse, we block ALL forms of web mail, cloud disks, any way at all for someone on the inside could put a file on the outside. We have tens of thousands of employees at computer desks, and the vast majority are low paid people in call centers with right to access the customer record databases. Any one of them could email lists of SSNs out of the building any time if we opened up to gmail. Any one of them could check their personal account on gmail and let a virus into our network that did not come through a filter, or click on a link to a phishing site that does not yet exist in the web filter. including people that might not otherwise have e-mail accounts at all inside the company.

This might be nice for a small office, but to be perfectly honest, with the fees this might incurr, and how easy it is to get CCR/SCR replication set up on a cheaper secondary exchange server you put in a hosting farm, and simply move the URL to the cloud over MPLS (or use MICROSOFT'S hosting services), and then you could keep security on the inside...

Glaring Flaw

Our corporate email is secured behind multiple layers, not just for filtering, but for ACCESS. Only a percentage of our users can access Exchange from off premises through any means other than VPN, and do so through secure servers and apps on their phone. Webmail is permitted for other users, backed by RSA dual factor authentication. ALL mail activity in and out of the dmioain is monitored and logged.

If we used google, we'd loose RSA, We'd loose cell phone connectivity, we'de loose monitoring and reporting and audit responsibility, and anyone who had an account could send any data they had access to out to unauthorized recipients without our abiltiy to stop it.

We have tools that scan outgoing e-mial for account numbers, SSNs, and many other types of critical data we have to protect. Seriously, all it would take for a hacker to steal our data if we implemented this would be for an insider to get on the network, point at gmail, and click send. We block every web mail system (and in fact most web access completely) to prevent just this scenario, and they suggest we turn this on for continuity (which is EASY with Exchange already?)

PayPal banned WikiLeaks after US gov intervention

no

The supreme court JUST ruled on that. So long as they comply with legimate notices of takedown, and "optionally" make extra efforts (no requirements to do so) to remove items they themselves believe infringing or illegal, they are immune from prosecution in any US court.

Had they not self-invoked their ToS, a polite phone call asking them to do so (and proper documentation from a judge regarding a take-down request) would have sufficed.

Only had they been informed and CONTINUED to host the account could they have run afoul of the law. they could have left it open waiting for that letter, but this was major knows, and obvious legal violations, and charges had been levied against their client, that was enough documentation for them.

way to RTFA

They clearly said, the US did NOT contact them in any way. The US public motions against Wikileaks directly were enough to satisfy them that the TOS were in fact violated, and they killed his accounts. The government never intervened, or made contact.

Vaguely illegal?

Fact: the documents WERE classified.

Fact: publishing classified material is illegal. This is not disputed!

Fact: A US employee who actually obtained the documents was detained, charged, and convicted in military court BEFORE the leak actually was posted online.

Fact: the US told Wikileaks IN ADVANCE it was a crime to publish those cables, and they were advised of what the punishments might be, and they did so anyway.

Fact: Wiki ignored very clear US regulations about publishing classified documents, documents that many of which would already have been available via FoIA requests (though they would likely have been redacted on some level).

Fact: All of these documents are slated to eventually be published anyway. Their classified status is limited by a time period.

in following

you don;t understand the pentagon papers case. The normal terms of limited access for those documents had expired, but the pentagon tried to extend that classification without a standing in law. These documents are covered by current valid classified status.

Walmart falls in with Washington's war on terror

Wow, just, wow...

Lets target the largest group of low income misfits in the country, many of them prone to reporting UFOs or ghost sightings, or who believe just about anything in print or on TV regardless of the source or legitimacy, plus many of the rest with criminal records, questionable immigration status, unstable home lives, or who have Alzheimer's or other mental issues gather. I'm not saying if you shop at Walmart you fall into this category ,but if you shop at Walmart you WILL see people in these categories, pretty much guaranteed.

Lets take this wholly unreliable group of people and use them to clog the DHS call centers with tens of thousands of calls about "he looks odd" or "I don't like that guy, he must be a terrorist" and "she smacked her child, in public!"

Wait, this might be genius! We'll concurrently identify a slew of morons who will call in false positives, while also gaining a probable cause excuse to background check every one of them, find all the illegals and problem citizens, and corral them all up (all in the name of terrorism, which no one will object to, unlike simply making this call-out to find these people anyway). this mightlead to getting thousands of people off the street (those we want to find, and those who have no business leaving their homes unsupervised, some needing padded rooms...)

/s

Microsoft unveils 'do not track' option for IE9

not bad

A white-list for cookie accept/decline. Not rocket science, but definitely a step forward. If it's easy to add site to, and maintain this list, it might work out nice. Still won't get me using IE again as a main browser, but still, a nice add.

Apple sells more mobile PCs than Dell

whole heartedly disagree

It has a full productivity suite, the ability to open Word, PDF, and other documents, and can share and disseminate information in a variety of ways. The form factor may prohibit productivity in terms of how LONG it takes to do that, or how comfortable it is, but it is in fact no less capable of doing that thing.

it HAS a file storage system, just not a user addressable system of files and folders. You can move documents in and out of the iPad, program independent, and use any number of programs ot access the files stored in that area. There are a plethora of data processing applications for the iPad (and more every day). Just because a specific application for doing so is not available on one platform or another does not make that platform less of a computing device. Should we exclude Windows 7 from being called a PC because it has no native SSH support, or because it can't run AppleScript code or support Linux printer drivers? That's just assinine.

#2

As for the keyboard, you'd eliminate ALL tablets from this debate with that clause, regardless of the OS or hardware capabilities. You'd equally have to include any iPad or other mobile device used with a BT keyboard or docking station. This is a condition that introduces variables not able to be tracked easily, and based on user preference not device capabilities. Simply by including a cheap $20 keyboard in the box, apple could essentially add every iPad as a mobile PC legitimately.

No PC is required for an iPad at all. It supports on-device activation and thus does not "require" iTunes at all. The only connection to a PC that is required it for syncing an existing media collection. However, this step can be bypassed by adding a mobile.me account and storing music and other files in the cloud (including being able to play them in the background). Files can easily be moved in and out through mobile.me or drop-box or any other similar service.

Removable storage requirements can also equally be countered through use of the cloud, drop box, and other services, and in fact, many NetBooks and even some laptops do not include a removable storage option. The iPad further DOES support SD as well as camera connection, and that can in some ways be equally used as storage. Again, this is a use case or personal preference aspect. The medium used is not determinate of the function, so long as the device can in fact create, open, edit, and share information, it meets all of the requirements of a personal computing device.

You say it requires USB, i say USB is a security risk ( to virus, data loss, and theft) and the cloud is not only more convenient, but safer. The odds of you needing to transfer data to someone else's mobile computer or any other computer in such a case as an ad-hock wifi connection can not equally be made, or connecting it via a cable, or running an app to share a file (even devoid of 3G or WiFi service offerings), will be highly rare and thus anomalous. It does not have to work in the middle of a desert to be considered a computer, that is a specialized use case, and additional equipment requirements may apply.

I hate bad statistics

Just because sales are ~5% vs the world for the last quarter does not mean that Mac OS does not have an over 10% install base across the world. PCs are most often returned after 3-5 years, where the average mac is kept in use much closer to 5-7 years. (laptops at the shorter end). This knowledge skews the usage numbers vs sales numbers.

As for linux, there are some small number running Linux only on personal computers, but most often, and by vast majority, Linux is an "also ran" OS, sometimes booted, sometimes in a VM (and some-time's its Windows in the VM), but rarely does the manufacturer have any impact on that user choice.

However, all of this is irrelevant as this is not an OS comparison, this is a VENDOR comparison, especially since many of Dell and HP's systems did in fact ship with non-windows OS.

lets classify then

A mobile computing device fitting either description noted, but that includes a keyboard (physical or virtual) or user input system designed to be used by 2 hands while sitting on a lap or table, a full color screen capable of both still and video images, and the ability to load applications including not less than a productivity suite, web access, and messaging. We define anything less as a PDA (or smart-phone if it in fact includes calling services via a provider).

The fact the iPad is eating so successfully into NetBook sales goes a long way here, as do all the people who use one in place of a laptop completely. Further, every other companies existing tablets (no matter how poorly selling) are equally included in PC sales.

It may not be a "full OS" device, but it certainly is a mobile computing device, and though the form factor is not ideal (without combining it at least with a docked or BT keyboard), it certainly is a productivity workstation, can handle corporate presentations, can play games, and so much more. I'd argue if we're to drop the iPad from this category, drop NetBooks as well, as I feel equally handicapped using an 11" netbook on an Atom processor as I do an iPad.

Hacker brings enhanced security to jailbroken iPhones

thank you

There are many workarounds for ASLR, it just requires a small bit more code. it does not prevent someone from attacking any security vulnerabilities and getting in, it simply means you can't directly, through predetermined knowledge, access code in RAM. however, where that code was randomized to is still obtainable once you are in. The pwn used on the iPhone in March would have worked had ASLR been in place or not. ASLR is a waste of time, until such a time as that process of randomization is removed from the OS itself and becomes an aspect of a hardware level hyper-visor, or more integrated system.

App sandboxing, tight permissions, and data encryption are fare more successful systems for preventing access to data. At that point, even if they get in, they can't DO anything. For example, in the Pnw2Own, all they got was the SMS database, and essentially they did it by sending "replys" to messages queued, which anyone who picked up the phone could have done (btw, this database has since been moved and secured, equal to the others).

clearly you are not a UNIX admin

Even IF they inject code, the permission escalation is still an issue, as is preventing code execution from within that space. Further, what's running in that space is separately secured by kernel level (not user) permissions. For example, the linker can only touch things in certain other places. ASLR also has its own vulnerability and weaknesses, and can be bypassed without too much effort, efforts that are actually less difficult than getting something into the memory space to start with.

Keep in mind, they "pwnd" both an iPhone and a Mac, but they could still not get any access, privileges, or data that was not simply available to the user itself, or by connecting the device to a cable. In fact, even the iPhone hack used, which took advantage of return-oriented programming (but in such a way as ASLR would NOT have prevented it anyway, as they used internal references, not direct memory access which the kernel sand-boxing prevented even in iOS 2), all they could get was access to the device and the SMS message database (not , contacts, not files, not access to any other apps). All they proved was they could get in, but additional code would have to be developed to exploit the sandbox, and further an exploit to enable them to install that code. Now that the iPhone encrypts its data, and with further improvements since iOS2, it's essentially no longer possible to do this without physical phone access and tethering it to a machine and loading custom firmware. As for the mac, all they really did was use a phishing scam to get a user to grant access, but they were still only to operate as that user, and the user the the keyboard could have seen the activity, and the hacker would have to have been "lying in wait" for the opportunity and once in operate manually as they could still not install code or get out of Safari's limited sandbox (which as of the new release is now completely sand-boxed on Macs).

ASLR sounds to many people as an end-all method to preventing hacks, but in reality, it only prevents one kind of hacks, and a kind for which many other options exist, including bypassing ASLR entirely and still getting the data in that memory space we don;t know the address of beforehand.

Google targets iPad with Android 3 Honeycomb tablet yumminess

no not like

The idea of fragments essentially is a shortcut many lazy devs will abuse to avoid actually making a different views, different options, different graphics and more that actually use the larger screen.

This works well for a "pane" based application like mail, but how this might apply to a document viewer, graphic application, game, etc, it doesn't work out. It's not just about using more pixels without "scaling," its about USING the additional space offered in more productive ways.

Maybe its possible to show one pane on a hone, and a completely different one on a pad, but even so, without the UI itself being naively aware of the resolution, and determining WITHIN a pane what to show and not, then you;re either asking devs to make dozens of frames, one each for every possible resolution, or they'll just scale it up anyway, or they'll show inconsistent panes that don;t completely fill the screen and may or may not show up if the device is not detected properly. Also, resolution alone is a bad idea, unless the app understands the actual native screen size, and can accommodate the appropriate panes (in their appropriate resolutions), for that screen, this could go badly.

I anticipate gingerbread, but i was hoping it would have some native UI elements and custom APIs to actually make creating a GUI that is appropriate for a larger screen both easier and more consistent across devices, this "fragments" idea sounds like it's going to introduce fragmentation into not only app performance development and OS version fragmentation, but screen scaling issues too. Neat trick to get a lot of simple apps "optimized" for the panel, but the devs are going to hate it, and any app actually coded to work as a single pane on a larger screen is going to need completely separate code to work on a smaller one (if it would at all).

When iOS got bigger, they added featyures specific to what a tablet UI could take advantage of. I'm hearing very little of that happening on Google's end.

ASSANGE ARRESTED in London - in court later today

others want him more

We got out man, the mole who sold the data. Assange is wanted, but of the countries damaged by these leaks, there's not as much egg on the face of the USA as there are others. We're OK letting them have their way with him so long as it follows due process and is open to the public. The costs to extradite him and try him here for a crime he committed while overseas, it's not worth it.

These were not national secrets, weapon designs, building blueprints, these were recorded cables; personal conversations between diplomats, over lines they KNEW would be recorded, that by law would have been declassified eventually anyway, and some of which would have already been subject to FoIA requests (though they might have been heavily redacted if so). Its an embarrassment of what some people discussed over monitored lines, but there does not appear to be any illegal activity here at all, just insights into how governments work behind closed doors. These are the things we all know get discussed, but we don;t care to know the details of. Politics has been done this way for thousands of years.

depends on the nation

In the US you're accused, but they have to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. That said, little more than a grand jury or a simple hearing, at which no evidence is presented, can remand you to jail for years awaiting a trial. (if later proven not-guilty, you do have some recourse). In other countries, you are guilty until you can prove your innocence. In others, you are simply accused, but you actually have to be absolved of guilt, not proven beyond reason guilty. These are gray areas.

it happnes

It depends on the jurisdiction, level of the court involved, and time sensitive nature of the case as it may be.

Arraignments typically happen within days, if not hours, even for minor crimes. Grand jury hearings also tend to happen pretty quickly. most large cases take years to get in court not because of court availability, but because of legal maneuvering of legal teams, motions for requests to delay, time required to process physical evidence, and more.

There have been news reports here of people being tried for major crimes, recently, within days of being arrested. A woman who drove her car purposefully of a bridge with her 2 kids in the back seat, let them drown, and then pretended it was an accident and called police, she was in court within a week. Same for several recent shootings. Full trials might take a year or more to schedule and conclude, followed by appeals, but they were in court quickly, and those who plead guilty were sentenced pretty quick as well.

Assange is not fighting this. It shuold be quick to extradite, and reasonably quick to prosecute.

there's already been an arrest

The guy who did the copying was known, very quick, and was arrested. Assange recruited and PAID him.

This was low clearance data. Though classified, it might have only taken public trust or basic security clearance to have access to the servers this stuff was on. He was an analyst, responsible for review of such data, and thus had access to all of it. This was a single data set, not multiple disparate systems.

Desperate people do desperate things. Some people (many screaming about this data), would believe it should have been released anyway, and may be easier to convince to steal it.

A data analyst who is not an IT analyst may not have even understood that copying this data to a thumb drive would have been logged and would be very easy to trace. Preventing access is tough, especially from people who's job it is to HAVE access, but logging access is easily done and easily reviewed, if not proactively. He probably had no idea it would be so easy to catch him.

hmmm.

Interesting how they started a smear campaign before he was even on the radar of the state... He was on US radar, sure, for the previous leak, which contained little or no classified data and was not technically a crime.

Interesting also how one would not assume that paying a member of a government to provide classified documents from a secure server would not be seen as illegal and have multiple world governments immediately demanding his arrest.

Even more interesting how it is Sweeden issuing the arrest warrant, and he has yet to be issued the same in the USA or the whole of Europe.

Facebook revamp gives away even more info, warn pros

Time to log back in

And reset all my settings back to secure, as I'm sure they made some settings I previously had less secure through the change. nothing new.

There's little or nothing on face book for them to have on me, aside from some associations to a very small list of people whom I know all of personally, but you can never be too careful. The minimum "required" information in the profile is far more than i am comfortable sharing. I essentially have a profile only for 2 reasons: so my wife can have 1 more neighbor in her online games (which is about all she uses it for), and so i can see a feed of some friends who post regularly that i never get to talk to.

iPad 2 to arrive around Valentine's Day - Taiwanese reports

did u have to bring up Foxconn?

Really?

We all know by now no Apple area employees of FoxConn participated in this protest. Apple requires higher pay in their areas, and premium perks for employees.

That said, 400,000 units is a VERY small initial rollout. The preorders for the original iPad exceeded that count. They'll sell several million within the first month. Add a zero and I might consider this a viable rumor. Talk about it being CDMA only, and based on the existing iPad specs, as an alternate model for Verizon and other worldwide provider customers still hobbled by that dying tech and i could also accept it. An iPad 2? not likely, not yet.

the iPad 2 is going to need to bump the A4 to the same RAM (or more) and slightly higher speed than the iPhone 4. i can understand a front facing camera a bit, but honestly, the prototype had one and only 17% of those surveyed inside apple liked it (bad angle, too heavy to hold, useless unless in a dock or stand, not a notable feature at all). It also needs the screen from the 11" MBA (or similar), and will almost certainly have NFC. I'd also suspect LTE chips, not CDMA, as both apple and Verizon have openly commented they will not make a CDMA device on Verizon's network.

i suspect the existing iPad will continue on as well, at $100-150 less and drop 3G for wifi only. (a common apple deal leaving the prev generation on the market at a discount).

I suspect further an apple announcement in Feb, but a product release not until March (pre-order beginning on announcement) and the LTE model coinciding with AT&T's initial roll-out in April.

White House forbids feds from reading WikiLeaked cables

missunderstood communication

People, this is simply a clarification of government policy on classified files. Just because you can access it, does NOT mean it is not still classified. IOW, if you don;t have access to these normally, reading them online is legally no different from reading them internally.

There's a LOT of stuff people can get to, and even open, that is still an "eyes only" document. It doesn't change whether or not you LEGALLY can, even if you physically can.

This was a reminder that reading them, talking about them at the water cooler, sharing insight on them, et al, is still all just as illegal as they are still classified (out in the open or not).

Technically anyone accessing these leaks is breaking the law, but the punishment applies a bit differently if you are contracted under the government and secret clearance rights vs a layman who has made no direct contract with the government.

statistics

No matter how thorough the screening process, given a couple million employees, there are simply bound to be either fuckwits, or moles, or spys.

The cost to better screen people clearly exceeds to cost of simply securing the data, so I guess that's the plan. Problem is, they know how to secure it. The issue of doing it simply takes time. the larger the infrastructure, the more difficult/time-consuming change is.

Microsoft badmouths Google over fed contract win

huh? WRONG!!!

From http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa338205%28office.12%29.aspx

Since Office 2007:

"The Office XML Formats are based on XML and ZIP technologies, so they are universally accessible. The specification for the formats and schemas will be published and made available under the same royalty-free license that exists today for the Microsoft Office 2003 Reference Schemas, and that is openly offered and available for broad industry use. "

People don't need office because of the file format, they need office because of the collaboration and document management tool suite that NO other company competes with. the 2KX and 2K7+ file formats are freely open, completely, no royalties, and a dozen apps use them natively (so long as the office format is not the "default" format that app uses). Open office can make a document pretty much the same as any Word doc, but in Word, i can collaborate, accept and review changes, directly share, output to numerous versions and print formats, add DRM, cross integrate across spreadsheets, visio, access, powerpoint (and have changes in a spreadsheet auto-populate in a word doc containing a subset of it without also having to open the work doc and copy it again!). its the time saving business features office offers that keeps it #1, not the FILE FORMAT.

Really?

Then explain how I can use Microsoft Office Web apps, and make Word, Excel, and other documents, completely for free, on even a Mac or Linux machine.