Posts by rjf 6 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Jan 2011
sounds like the future is going to hark back to the past. in recent years computer scientists have tended to ignore hardware issues, saying that everything can be abstracted away from the hardware but the days of copius effectively-free processing cycles is ending.
Okay, botnets are mostly windows-based machines, but the point of principle that they are discussing refers to any internet-connected device.. so if your device is pwn'ed or just deemed "diseased/broken", then they are proposing to disconnect your machine. My expectation is that this would be at an ISP level so your traffic will be re-routed.
in my organisation, that's what happens automatically.. they detect a virus, they kill the port.
I think they made the right call... it's call a "fabless" design model, you design and build your chips on other fabs. this gives them freedom. The cost of a current generation fab is about 5 billion dollars.. you need a huge volume to make that worth while and contract manufacture is not what IBM is about.
as another poster said, the 10 year deal is about supply business to global foundry... there is a reason they had to PAY global foundries to take the fab, they refused to pay for it 6 months ago.
A few years ago, I saw an article that said there would only be a dozen fabs worldwide in a few years time... split between 2-3 manufacturers. each fab tends to double in cost per generation but more than doubles it's output.. so eventually it's only possible to stay in the game if you have an ever decreasing number of fabs.
It won't happen for phones.. the deal that operators have at the moment is that they are allowed "reasonable" lockin periods and in return they offer subsidies for the phones. So if they are not allowed to have lockin periods and people can jump as they wish, then they can't offer subsidies.
I buy my iPhone from Vodafone, and get a 400€ subsidy... next day I switch to using a different operator who can offer a cheaper usage package as they didn't offer any subsidy.
So summary.. will people buy iphones when they have to visibly and upfront pay the apple premium?
PS: ipads are sold unlocked without subsidies so this works for them.
PS: might be the best thing that could happen for an operator if they got out of this stupid subsidy wars... that's what gives all the money to Apple
if only Ireland was getting 12.5% tax rate from these companies... but in reality the trick is to pay no taxes... hence the Double-Dutch-Irish thingy and many other similar ones. What they do is manipulate the rules between difference jurisdictions so that income is classified in different ways, thereby minimising taxable income. If done right, you can work your way down to an effective 0% tax rate. it's a very clever piece of legal arbitrage ... we need to fix the tax code and the regulations.
you can fly within Schengen area with just an ID but not the EEA (PS UK is outside schengen). I've seen on ryanair a lot of italians who fly with their national ID and not their passports
cameras are only banned in UK airports at the point of the immigration officers but i've not really seen them enforce it. They also ban phones. I suspect it's more for politeness and efficiency than anything
If you examine the way airports work.. you need valid ticket to enter airside, security does not check your ID/passport at that point but airlines in the EU seem to have final responsibility for confirming that the person named on the ticket is the person flying on the ticket.
I hate security actions that are just for looks - eg the banning of liquids onto the plane. there's been no successful recombination liquid bombs on aircraft.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
