Posts by introiboad 46 publicly visible posts • joined 21 May 2011
But this is not meant for everybody to upgrade. If you already have an iPad, you're don't have to upgrade, the same way many people won't upgrade from Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge. That doesn't prevent Intel from introducing new chips every year!
If you want a tablet, now you can buy an Apple one with hi-res display and better camera. If you don't, or already have an older iPad, stay home and enjoy life.
The indictment is an excellent read:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/78786408/Mega-Indictment
They were pretty reckless in their emails talking about piracy, but I feel for the people who have personal files stored in MU and are now without those.
Not sure who to line with on this one, on the one hand this Kim muppet probably went too far, on the other hand cyberlockers are useful to many people for legal purposes, I don't want governments to shut them down without due process.
I'm really surprised that in a browser related article's comment section almost no one seems to mention Chrome, concentrating instead on Firefox. Last time I checked Chrome is about to overtake Firefox in usage, and for good reason in my opinion: it's faster and gets out of the way, it's very stable and a pleasure to use. I switched a couple years back and never looked back, except when I'm on a Mac, then I use Safari which I think is pretty decent too.
Not to say that Firefox is a bad browser at all, or that the gargantuan task it performed by being the first real alternative to IE to become popular is without merit, rather the contrary.
In page 8, I read: "Nehalem was a 45nm part, and a follow-on to the first 45nm parts – code-named Penryn – which introduced the second of Bohr's process improvements"
But in fact believe that Penryn preceeded Nehalem, since Penryn was based on the Core architecture, the one immediately before Nehalem.
Ice Cream Sandwich supports USB OTG, and if Symbian is still the top smartphone OS online, well, it clearly won't next year so that is a useless statement.
Today we saw the Smartphone OS market share numbers on Engadget:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/28/samsung-claims-top-spot-in-global-smartphone-shipments-for-q3-20/
... and so I bought it. Along with it, I have been buying apps for a few years now, meaning that it's just not an option for me to switch to Android, I have too much money invested in apps to have to buy them all over again (assuming they're available).
That said, I do like the iPhone and unless Apple screw it up I have no real reason to switch. I did use a Nexus One (got it for free at a Google dev conf) for a few months when I lost my 3GS while waiting to buy a new iPhone, and I must say it wasn't very pleasant, especially regarding music: the fidelity of sound reproduction was just not on par with that on the iPhone.
I would be willing to try again with HTC this time, since they usually get rave reviews, but I really can't afford to buy all my apps again :(
... do people have to repeat this?
Many users install Linux on computers they bought with Windows installed. Sometimes because they like the hardware, sometimes because they happened to get it from eBay cheap, sometimes because they rescued it from a garbage bin.
Those computers are still perfectly usable and they can be recycled by installing Linux. If Microsoft prevents us from doing so, it will harm all users, including my brother who currently has a refurbished laptop that runs Ubuntu and originally came with Windows.
AFAIK, BSODs and kernel panics are the result of hitting assert() statements in kernel code that guard important state variables in kernel space and non-recoverable errors in functions.
That means that any driver (which runs in kernel mode and therefore has full access to the kernel memory address space) with a buffer overflow can cause a panic by simply memcpying too far or doing anything else that can taint the kernel's internal structures.
Of course faulty RAM can also cause this, since it's all about corrupting the kernel memory, but I fail to see how a process could trigger this since it runs in user mode. About usefulness of debug information, if an assertion has been hit in driver code that may be helpful, but if memory has just been overwritten all over the place it won't help much to see what error code you hit, since it's mostly random.
Not being a web developer, I didn't even realize this would require Javascript.
Of course the advantages that you point out are indeed patent, and the last thing I want is the reg to become slower. But in these days of Webkit everywhere, can't we have a little JS that runs along nicely on any platform? Then again some people disable JS I think, so this may not be a good idea after all...
Anyways, good point!
Great job the Reg! Thanks for the effort.
Could we add in-page thumbs up and reply? That is, not having to reload a whole new HTML page when you want to give someone a thumbs up (or down) or reply to a post. It seems to be a standard in at least some of the other interwebs sites...
Aren't they getting old?
Clearly many people like iPhones and MacBook Airs. Give us a break! Damn it I love UNIX, Linux and good technology in general, and I have an iPhone 4. I run Linux on some computers at home, Mac OS X on others and love the fact that I can open bash on both and type most of the same commands. They are not toys, they are not for stupid people, they are just devices that work, and work pretty well if you ask me.
I have absolutely nothing agains Android. Nothing. Zero. I had a Nexus One and used it for a few months until I unfortunately lost it on a drinking binge, but I _personally_ (that means me, not everybody else) prefer the iPhone user interface. I program in low-level embedded C and assembly during the day and still use an iPhone because when I use a phone I do not want to open a shell and start churning out code, for that I have computers at home.
I can't believe all the Apple bashing after all they've contributed to open source (WebKit, LLVM) and after the fact that they have taken a UNIX based operating system and made popular to the masses. Would you rather have Microsoft and their crufty, 20-year old APIs rule the mobile world too?
We cannot have it all, what we have is not so bad after all.
I complete agree with you, but it's not only that.
Windows 7 runs on any computer that can run Vista. This must be the first time an OS from Microsoft does not require more powerful hardware than its predecessor. Windows 8 will be similar in terms of requirements apparently, that makes 3 OSs in a row that can run on the same metal. That is big news in the IT world, until now if you wanted the lates OS or the latest Office you had to upgrade your computer, now you don't.
Hell, even Rage, id Software's latest game, will run on standard settings on a 3 to 4 year old PC.
No, if I remove the PIN I am no longer able to download email or calendars from the corporate Exchange.
About iPhones giving Exchange a battering, I wouldn't know since I am not in IT really (I'm a developer) but I believe it if you say so.
All I was trying to say, at least in my companies, both Android and iPhone phones are able to (securely) connect to the corporate email and calendar facilities without hassle.
I merely want to point out that my company uses Exchange as an email/calendar/contacts server and I use my iPhone to securely access all of that data with no problems at all. Not only that, but when I added the work Exchange account to my iPhone it actually forced me to protect the phone with a PIN or else... no mail.
All email and calendar events are pushed instantly to the phone (I hear the phone beep before Outlook has a chance to see there's a new email or meeting request)
I am pretty damn sure that Exchange + iPhone work very well together and therefore are suitable for the enterprise. Also, Apple provide admin tools to remotely control and wipe phones.
You are right. Qualcomm licenses the ARM ABI (instruction set, bus, etc) and then writes the Verilog on its own.
I believe than other than them and Xscale (now Marvell) no one else does it, licensing instead the full cores in netlist or source form and then adding a bunch of peripherals around them.
Thumbs up for mentioning Ars.
Also, the CPU expert at Ars have been telling their readership for ages that ARM does not have any magic dust they can sprinkle over their chip designs to make them more efficient. The only reason they consume less power is because they are _way_ less powerful than x86 chips. The day the start approaching them in computing power, they will consume pretty much the same. Also, to the CISC vs. RISC debate people: Ars again mentions that instruction decoding into microops today comprises a very very small percentage of the CPU time, and therefore the ABI or instruction set is mostly irrelevant these days when talking of powerful chippery.
Again, just quoting Jon Stokes and the other Ars experts, but they do seem to know their stuff.
I didn't know that Broadcom made SoCs. I thought it was mainly network stuff. Anyways, some time ago there was a discussion regarding Symbian and modern chipsets, and I asked why on earth they still make it run on ageing ARM11s instead of using A9s or at least A8s. I was told it had nothing to do with the Symbian code base, but I am skeptical as a individual who has seen it and fought with it.
You are right, I could setup an HTPC and hook it up to my HDTV. But there are a few annoyances that prevent me from actually wanting to do so:
1) Friends: For some reason most of them have PS3s, so I won't be able to play online with them. They would all buy a PS4
2) Keyboard/mouse: I code for a living but when I sit down on the sofa to play an FPSs I don't want a keyboard or mouse, I want a controller.
3) Tricks/unknowns/differences: When I play online on the PS3 I know that, other than the lag/ping, we're playing the same game at the same frame rate and with the same controller. I see this as being fair, and I hate being fragged by someone on the PC and thinking that it's because they have a better setup or control method.
All that said, I am seriously considering it. Any recommendations for an HTPC?
I actually respectfully disagree with the comments so far.
I am not rich, but I do have the money to buy a new console, and I am not really into PC gaming. I like FPSs with a pad and love Oblivion, most Rockstar games and a few others. If I could play them with a top of the line CPU+GPU and lots of RAM from the comfort of my sofa I would gladly pay for that privilege. I am a bit tired of seeing Crysis 2 type videos on the internet that look absolutely amazing and then getting a low-res, low-poly version just because I happen to like consoles and not PCs for gaming (I own only a PS3 and love it, I just can't wait for the PS4).
Thanks for the info, I was not aware of this.
Another issue is whether Symbian is finally ready for SMP like Linux and iOS are. Transitioning from a single core to symmetric multiprocessing is hard. I guess it's less relevant now since Symbian is being deprecated in favor of Linux/WinPhone.
My iPhone 4 does 4 days in Standby without a hitch, and that's with Skype running on WiFi (GSM/3G data disabled).
I wonder why Symbian phones never use Cortex-A8/9 processors? Is that a Symbian limitation? You say they don't need it, but try loading a complex web page over WiFi and compare load times with a modern Android/iPhone
Look, we live in this thing called capitalism. This system forces companies to answer to shareholders, and make as much money as they can for them. Jump on to vgchartz and compare the sales numbers of _any_ recently released AAA game (CoDBO, MW2, Portal 2) and you'll see that the PC to consoles sales ratio is 1:10 or worse.
When you sell 10 times more units on consoles it is perfectly normal to make the latter your main target, and use only DX9 since that's around the graphical level that the XBox/PS3 support.
It's all about the moneys.
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