Posts by Kimo

Bill Gates lays out a three-point plan to rid the world of COVID-19 – and anti-vaxxer cranks aren't gonna like it

Re: If Bill Gates has the technology to implant chips to control people's behavior

Reality as a Service.

Brexit travel permits designed to avoid 7,000-lorry jams come January depend on software that won't be finished till April

Re: "7,000 vehicles (about 60 miles/96km, end-to-end)"

1,056 American football fields.

Re: effective and simple to use

They can store the QR codes in the cloud using blockchain for maximum buzzword density.

Apple to Epic: Sue me? No, sue you, pal!

Re: Microsoft Has anyone else noticed...

What does that have to do with limiting app store purchases?

Re: Anti-Trust

If you play Fortnite on Playstation or XBox, you can buy in app currency anywhere and spend it in the game. If you play on iOS, you can only get in game currency from Apple. PC and console games do not perpetually tie in game purchases to their store.

Re: Monopolistic behaviour

The inability to negotiate can be used as evidence that Apple has a monopoly and is abusing it. If there were competition, Apple would have to bargain to keep apps on their store.

I honestly think Epic’s proposed remedy will include opening up third party app stores on iOS (and that is why they took the more difficult route of suing Apple and Google separately). They already have a working app store on PC with a payment system that undercuts Steam and they can offer devs using Unreal a simple route to publishing and payment.

Re: Hot tip for gamblers

While I hope Epic prevails, it is only because smaller devs would benefit from a more reasonable fee structure and potentially other ways to get their content out.

Predictable legal maneuvering

Epic contends that Apple’s contract is onerous and legally unenforceable. Apple most likely does not expect a dismal at this point, but by countersuing they can request legal fees from Epic if they prevail and Epic can not unilaterally drop the suit if they see themselves losing. This is just foreplay for the legal teams.

Re: The “Apple take 30%” thing is a lie

In an earlier ruling, the judge did indicate that while 30% sounds high, 0% is clearly too low. I expect a lot of discovery will focus on the true cost of running the big 2 app stores and the actual value to developers. There is a serious chance that common sense will prevail. And be overturned on appeal.

Re: Microsoft Has anyone else noticed...

Apple does have a monopoly on iOS devices, a market that is worth more than the Android market (I recall Epic saying 60%of their mobile revenue is through Apple). The critical battle of this suit will be defining the market, and Epic will point to Apple restrictions on transferring in app purchases between platforms as creating a distinct market.

Epic move: Judge says Apple can't revoke Unreal Engine dev tools, asks 'Where does the 30 per cent come from?'

Re: There's a big flaw in Epic's argument

That depends on what they determine at trial to be the appropriate definition of the market. All gaming devices is too broad. All mobile and desktop devices is also probably too broad. I expect the fight will come down to mobile devices, with the option down to is iOS a market, or is iOS+Android the correct market? Apple will go for the wider definition, while Epic will cite the impossibility of moving paid content between devices as creating two separate markets.

Just because Epic can and does sell in other markets does not mean that Apple can use a monopoly to take advantage of their market.

Apple hits back at Epic, says Fortnite crew wants a 'free ride' on fees: Let the app store death match commence

No clean hands here.

Apple and Google have featured "free" games since the inception of their stores since most of the public won't pay $.99 to put an app on their $800 phones (which they don't often see the real price of thanks to no-interest phone sales by carriers). So game developers found ways to add addictive behavior to their games to sell in-app purchases. With the base game "free" the app stores need in-app purchase revenue to make any money of a lot of popular titles. Game devs have worked hand-in-hand with app stores to milk money out of users, and that created the environment where we are now. With no up-front cost, games companies would get a free ride from the app stores. But a 30% cut of every transaction in perpetuity is steep. There has to be a fair middle ground, But with no cut to Apple or Google, then Epic, EA, Nexon, Bethesda, and other devs would be taking advantage of Apple, in the system that Apple built on purpose. The companies built this system together to milk the most money out of consumers, to the point where a fair number of people will drop more money into a "free" game then it cost to by a triple-A PC/Console game.

Re: A few pertinent questions....

Epic already has a working PC store with secure payments.

Re: I hope Epic have the balls to stay the course

Their lead attorney was the head of antitrust under the Obama administration. They are paying top dollar for lawyers, and they have enough in cash reserves to pursue this case.

But the iOS store makes twice as much in revenue as the Google Play store. Determining if it is a monopoly will be a tricky legal question, and probably will make or break this case.

Re: Only 30% ?

Epic has their own store on PC. I am certain that their acceptable remedies will include allowing Epic to offer their store on iOS.

Re: And they're right

You are not bound if the contract terms are onerous. Epic has a better suit against Apple then Google, as there is no way to get an app on an iOS device for a typical user except through the app store.

Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced techie is indistinguishable from magic

Girl Genius reference

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20081205#.XzhjtOhKiUk

I have never personally burned down a building to resolve a support ticket, but well done, sir, well done.

Not exactly the same...

But when my department started getting optical mice instead of rollers, I had a coworker complaining about random mouse movement. After checking drivers and connections, I noticed his mouse pad had a lenticular surface that was great traction for a physical mouse, but reflected the optical beam at random angles. One new mouse pad solved the problem.

Epic Games gets itself epically banned, launches epic Fortnite death match with Apple over App Store's epic 30% cut

Re: Did they not read the Terms and Conditions?

The did. And the speed at which they sued indicates they knew exactly what would happen. But they had to put their apps on the stores to have standing to challenge in court if those rules are onerous and therefore unenforceable. Only try this trick if you are prepared to dump a lot of money into your law firm.

Unless the end game is forcing Apple to allow an iOS Epic store.

CERN puts two new atom-smashers on its shopping list. One to make Higgs Bosons, then a next-gen model six times more energetic than the LHC

High-field superconducting magnets, high-temperature superconductors, plasma wakefield acceleration tech, bright muon beams? My local police probably already have all the bits and are using them for crowd control.

Microsoft Teams gets off to a wobbly start as the world and its cat starts working from home

Can't wait until next week to see how Ohio State's systems handle switching 50,000 students to online classes.

You, FCC, tell us again why cities are only allowed to charge rich telcos $270 to attach 5G tech to utility poles?

Which would look nice next to a modern 5G unit. It's all about showing the structure and services.

Cost per pole varies widely. The hourly rate to process depends on the local cost of living and prevailing wages. Des Moines can afford a much lower fee than San Francisco because you have to pay people enough to live in the Bay area.,

And despite their protests about aesthetic issues, there are real concerns especially in historic districts. Slapping a fuggly bit of kit in the French Quarter or Savannah's old city is different than putting it on the side of a brutalist office slab.

After just one phone, Essential Products ascends to the great venture capitalist in the sky

I like my Essential phone, but I picked it up at $250 instead of launch price. At that price the so-so camera isn't a deal breaker, and I did get the 360 camera attachment. They could have followed up with a second phone with a better camera and lower price, but they wanted to make SHINY-SQUIRREL instead. They changed focus more times than my cats. But they made a decent bare-bones Android phone.

Whoa, France. Take it easy. Wow. You're out of control. Fining Apple 55 minutes of revenue for secretly slowing down iPhones? Maniaques!

On the other hand

Sudden shutdowns would also cause people to buy new kit. Informing them and creating an option screen would have been a good move, but Apple could get hit on either side for this.

Google says its latest chatbot is the most human-like ever – trained on our species' best works: 341GB of social media

Skynet doesn't scare me. The YouTube comments section becoming sentient, that's my worst nightmare.

China tells America, with a straight face, it will absolutely crack down on hacking and copyright, tech blueprint theft

Check back in a year

This is just a fig leaf deal so Trump can declare victory before the election. If this deal has teeth, I will be incredibly surprised. And I can see China buying a large quantity of farm goods in 2020 to push up Trump support ahead of the election so they don't have to deal with a grownup in the White House, but in the long term the amounts they have sorta promised to buy are unsustainable.

When is an electrical engineer not an engineer? When Arizona's state regulators decide to play word games

Re: AKA Libertarians

At Ohio State, to graduate as a Computer or Software Engineer, you still need the into Engineering sequence. You can get a Computer and Information Science degree without any Engineering classes.

When the IT department speaks, users listen. Or face the consequences

Re: Storing in the wrong place?

I was once given the task of telling a list of users to clean out their inboxes before a major maintenance on an Outlook server. They estimated rebuilding the system after would take about 1 hour/gigabyte, with a handful of accounts nearing the 3GB storage limit. As I was not a senior position, most just told me "no" even knowing that we were looking at an extended email outage.

Academics with laptops are the worst offenders. Had a boss about that time get a nasty file-corrupting virus with over three years worth of work on an un-backed up laptop. I spent three days on it (OK, half a day finding a tool to dredge through the disc, 20 minutes to start it up, another day of actually salvaging files, and the rest of the time spent explaining back up resources that they were ignoring).

They say lightning never strikes twice, but boffins have built an AI to show where it'll come next

Re: If it doesn't strike twice

I used to live about a block from a university dorm that was the only 7-story building for about 70 miles in any direction, which was built on a ridge in the middle of the Mississippi delta, some of the most amazingly flat land in the world. It got 2-3 strikes every time we had a good storm.

Just what we all needed, lactose-free 'beer' from northern hipsters – it's the Vegan Sorbet Sour

Pennsylvania Dutch traditionally left cider out to freeze to make a concentrated version.

Re: You're thinking..

Wheat and rye are OK because they can all be malted, just like barley.

Right-click opens up terrifying vistas of reality and Windows 95 user's frightful position therein

Best thing about Windows 95...

...was you could still boot into DOS and launch programs from there.

Massachusetts city tells ransomware scumbags to RYUK off, our IT staff will handle this easily

And the spread was stopped by turning off machines. My campus with 63,000 students likes to keep all machines on 24/7 for "updates" that could easily run at boot, leaving he entire network exposed.

Hack-age delivery! Wardialing, wardriving... Now warshipping: Wi-Fi-spying gizmos may lurk in future parcels

Re: I'm not so sure.

Step one: send a series of emails, not spammy enough to go straight to the junk folder, and search for out-of-office auto-replies. "I'm on vacation until..." is gold. Step two: ship a small box spoofing an office-supply chain return address. Those don't get checked often. Now you have a box sitting on site for some time.

Low Barr: Don't give me that crap about security, just put the backdoors in the encryption, roars US Attorney General

Re: We hide reality Per 100,000

Comparing crimes per a set number allows comparison over time and across borders because we have a set scale. You can compare the number of knife attacks in the UK and the US but the number itself is meaningless until you look up population and do some maths. Same with looking at London in 1960 and 2019. The population has increased and that context matters.

Who needs strong encryption?

Most of our home-grown terrorists here in the US put their info on Facebook and Twitter instead of using secure communications.

Sleeping Tesla driver wonders why his car ploughed into 11 traffic cones on a motorway

Re: Not-an-Autopilot

The car makes a noise if the driver's hands leave the steering wheel.

Re: Not-an-Autopilot

My knowledge of the workings of autopilots comes entirely from the movie Airplane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WQfZYacEAw

Legal bombs fall on TurboTax maker Intuit for 'hiding' free service from search engines

Re: Not being an American

The most audited returns are those claiming the Earned Income Credit, a program set up to help keep the working poor less dependent on other forms of assistance. And the people who are claiming the credit also tend to have less education and experience with this type of paperwork. So tax software can help people to navigate their filing and keep it safe in case of an audit. There are low income people who absolutely need it.

Boeing boss denies reports 737 Max safety systems weren't active

Re: But they did, they told Muilenburg to stop digging, many times.

You can't simply blame one executive or one aircraft builder (not that Boeing is innocent here). The FAA allows employees of the manufacturers to do the bulk of certification work. Certification requires the cooperation of aircraft firms, but also requires that the personnel in charge are not paid by the companies they are certifying. They need the independence and authority to ask difficult questions and delay certification without worrying about losing their jobs.

Astronomer slams sexists trying to tear down black hole researcher's rep

Re: Being a gay astronomer...

Must not make Uranus puns....

Re: From His Twitter Thread

If he even THINKS about suggesting an Ursula K LeGuinn story as a musical, I will lose all respect.

LOL EPA OIG NDA WTF: Eco-watchdog's auditors barred from seeing own agency's cloud security report by gagging order

There is a Public Interest exception to an NDA, despite what the text may claim. Our current administration loves them, but the courts do not. Better to violate the NDA and sue if they take action.