Apple

Massively overpriced then, massively overpriced now.

Light pipes to illuminate?

It's not worthy of a patent.

An implementation might be worthy of being copyright or a registered Design. If this sort of stuff is getting approved it ultimately will bring the system into disrepute.

40 years ago toy cars used this (on the roof) to "light" the headlamps.

XP mode

Don't "upgrade" to Win7 . Just install XP

Who needs IEx anymore?

See

http://www.browserchoice.eu/

Firefox or Opera will likely be a better choice for W2K, XP, Vista, Win7 and Win8

Chrome? No thanks to spyware and the Ministry of Love.

Safari? A browser that in the past tried to install iTunes and produced by the most arrogant Tech Company. No Thanks. Pointless as is everything Apple. Better Ubuntu than OSX as Windows Alternative.

Battery Charger SW

Any sw in a smart charger should be well tested firmware, built in.

Mistreated batteries go on fire or explode.

The real reason....

Is that 90% (or whatever) of the iPhone Apps can be done with free Flash Apps.

Grandad

In my Grandad's day they used relays to build computers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z1_%28computer%29

Later in my Dad's day, they used transistors. Those computers had 1000's of cores. One little core for each bit of storage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_store

My first computer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SC/MP

Mine's the one with a pocket full of little black beads.

Nothing to do with fixing Mobile Networks.

"which might just mean that all of these handheld devices with broadband links won't absolutely crash networks. "

Mobile Networks are designed for symmetrical 5kbps to 20kbps voice traffic, assuming classic usage patterns of call usage and call duration.

Due to spectrum limitations by the time there are 20 simultaneous data streams on a Mast sector you have dialup speed. With CDMA/EVDO and 3G/UMTS/FOMA/W-CDMA/HSPA the cell also shrinks and up to 1/2 capacity is lost due to "code noise".

LTE only really offers x5 capacity if it's on a 20MHz channel instead of 5MHz.

Unless cell operators quadruple or even higher the number of cells and find x20 more bandwidth, then Mobile can't offer large numbers of people broadband speed.

Just Google Stanford page-rank patent

U.S. Patent 6285999

also Stanford pagerank patent

Even if iphone is the best Phone and people are copying it

These patents should NEVER have been awarded.

Some aspects of the iPhone are copyright-able. I doubt ANY aspect of the iPhone is a valid Apple Patent.

BTW I actually played with a "windows" object orientated Graphics workstation in about 1977 in a public retail show room. It was made by Xerox and was monochrome Portrait.

In 1980s I used at least one 90 degree swivel terminal that automatically changed from Portrait to Landscape when you swivel.

I designed a Pad (mini-Tablet) with gesture controlled Touch screen (mono of course) in 1987 .. 1990. I have a patent for a Pen for it that functioned as "mouse" on ordinary surface and worked as cordless handset. 1990.

Apple have innovated very little ever, they are a trend setting fashion design house. They didn't invent the capacitive touch screen. It was unpopular because of low resolution, poor for handwriting recognition.

Let them rely on Copyright, registered Design, Trademarks etc, like other Artists. Not fake patents because the USPO doesn't do it's job.

HD?

Not good enough for A4 word/pdf documents.

96 dpi and 11.5" long = 1104 lines / rows of pixels

120 dpi and 11.5" long = 1380

96 dpi and 11.6" long = 1114

I'd normally want other windows/apps open, so even if a screen had a portrait mode, landscape suits better except for an eReader.

WS 16:9 is not too useful if it means losing vertical. Like on laptops, what can equal a 15.4" 4:3 1600x1200 screen for document editing without scrolling up/down? An equivalent modern is 17" 16:9 1920x1080. The still too large but more useful as a Computer 1920x1200 (16:10) seem to be gone.

I don't want a keyboard for my TV. It's going to be film viewing distance away and in a room with no desk.

I'd happily use one of these Eeee Keyboard PCs instead of a laptop if I could get a suitable LCD screen for it. I don't want a 22" HD screen either. At Document / programming / CAD creation/edit distance a 22" Wide screen should be about 1560 lines.

No Worries Yet.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/help/end-support-windows-xp-sp2-windows-vista-without-service-packs?os=other

Scroll down page:

"If you're running Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) and you're not ready to upgrade to Windows 7, you should install Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3), a free update. "

Support for XP SP3 will be around a while more.

By then Ubuntu will be at XP level of functionality :)

Total choke risk

Children under 14 ARE more likely to choke to death than be killed by gunshot, but that includes ALL types of choking,

* For Children 14 and Under

Motor Vehicles 3,059

Drownings 1,024

Fires 883

Choking 213

Firearm 181 (2.7% of fatal accidents)

Falls 127

Poisonings 80

So less than 10% of choke deaths are hotdogs and this is about 0.2% of deaths?

source http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp#Accidents

(though the site seems less objective than it claims to be)

I think we should hide the matches and give them free lifejackets and swimming lessons.

Death by Sharks to kids under 14 (with or without lasers) is not listed. Snake bite more likely.

This is why

Windows 6.2 is irrationally called Windows 7 to deliberately confuse people.

This is MS problem from the start. Windows does not fit all. There should be 3 , 4 or 5 families

netbook/workstation/Server AKA Windows.

Embedded with no GUI

Embedded with primitive GUI for LCD and optional OSD GUI in PAL, NTSC, 720p and 1080i and 1080p flavours. (set boxes)

The PDA/PMP version (larger screen)

The Phone version (smart phone screen)

Small Screen Player version (media players and pocket devices with text only or little graphics)

Only one should have windows in the name. idiots. Nor does same APIs make a lot of sense apart from a subset.

It's about reducing Banks' liability not about stopping Fraud :(

I've always said that Chip & PIN was always about reducing the Bank's liability to Fraud. Not actually really more secure or reducing Fraud. With a signature you can prove it's not you and get the money back, with Chip & PIN you can't. Thus Bank "Fraud" drops.

Of course RFID for credit/cash cards or Passports is even more stupid. A technology designed to replace Barcodes (which can be photocopied) and RFID is not inherently a technology designed for Secure applications. Because RFID is unique "fingerprint" even if you don't decode it, an RFID "reader" at each location that your "mark" might use lets you track where the RFID is. If the "mark" realises, you could of course be tracking someone else that had the "tag" dumped on them.

Apple Sucks?

“There is no need to do this; it's a short-sighted plan to avoid supporting well over a million users who are still running 10.4 for various reasons; i.e., they can't afford to upgrade their equipment; 10.5 and 10.6 drop or break features that work perfectly well in 10.4; that upgrading would require them to purchase new versions of software that works perfectly well under 10.4; or even that many people think both 10.5 and 10.6 suck.”

Mmmm... They could always run Windows XP or Linux or Solaris x86 on their overpriced Hardware. (That's why the OS is cheap and they don't want in on non-Apple boxes, not the driver support issues)

In reality Apple stopped having their own HW & SW with switch from Power PC and end of OS9 development. x86/x64 Macs are just Commodity PC parts and a Pretty GUI on a BSD ripoff. Both add nothing to Computer Science or Engineering, its Marketing. An upmarket Brando gadget.

Obviously

The tools and compatibility features are so that later Disillusioned Itanium users can Migrate to Xeon rather than something not Intel.

For Green Field startups Itanium was dead, is dead and will be dead. I guess it's good that Intel is supporting existing customers.

Bad the way DEC stuff was killed when they were bought. The Alpha kept NT cross platform and they had really been the originators of MS Cluster and the ARM designs Marvell bought from Intel.

Is AMD really still credible competition? Was the heyday of x86 at end of 486 and start of Pentium cycle when we had IBM, Cyrix, AMD and others making various PC chips. The Geode x86 derived from those days is losing fast to ARM, ST20 and MIPS in embedded systems. Is VIA credible competiton in x86 or a hobby of the owner (who owns the rather more successful HTC)?

Google Docs

Is a remote application. Not my application.

Absolute fail

Education and a separate Firewall

Education and a separate Firewall are the key, possibly a mail server that eats all executables. not AV/Security software. Some users never have malware and all of the infected PCs I ever fixed did have AV.

No AV software or Infections on this box in 8 years. Occasional audits by:

1) Network activity

2) www.silentrunners.org

3) various root kit detection packages

4) checking RAM usage and Processes running.

Never runing IE or Outlook

patches / SP usually up to date.

Remote images and remote HTML are blocked.

Never clicking on unexpected attachments, even if from friends (a spammer could be using their address)

Always un-needed services disabled

If have to run with no Firewall, then VPN to own mailserver and MS client Bindings disabled on the Network in Use.

All unused Networks disabled.

Never have File & Print server running, use a NAS or Server or dedicated Workstation.

The AV model without User

Read how cellular works

It's really only on isolated sectors/isolated rural cells/very large cells that this is any use. In normal cell configuration the distance of the cell beyond the next cell limits the power otherwise the handset/modem in that cell would have poorer performance.

For most situations this makes no difference.

With more Smart phones, iPhones, iPads, iTablets, mobile Sling, 3 modems, then you need more smaller cells to increase capacity and power is not a problem. only money to pay for backhaul and bases. Current Data is subsidized by expensive voice calls.

If the % of data use rises and cells thus have to be smaller to increase capacity, then data prices will quadruple.

So...

A thousand of my server on it's "1Gbps port" would about use up the 250Gbps and 16,000 of them to use up the 4Tbps rack.

If you put 2 x 5 disk RAID5 with 2T drives, that's 256000 Terabytes via a 4Tbps rack, using maybe 4 mega watts of electricity.

You could maybe cache all of the useful bits of the Internet on that?

If Users had 20Mps download... that would be 2 Million simultaneous users to eat your 4Tbps rack.

At typical levels of traffic/contention (as people take breaks to sleep, read the content etc) you could supply a largish country. Or a small one with peak time true HD quality VOD.

Who are these 4Tbps racks for?

As with most

A real HW firewall/NAT router will protect you.

Transcoding Video and Games?

Minority sports on laptops.

Consoles is main game market. Serious PC gamers use Desktops so they can change the graphics every 3/6/9 months.

Likely ARM will have SoC HW transcode support if a market demand. Even quite slow ARM core can do HDTV out by using MPEG HW in its SoC. TV bluRay or HD setboxes only use CPU for "tuning", UI etc, all the "heavy lifting" is DSP HW/Firmware, not general CPU SW.

x86 isn't going to go away, but MS and Apple (for different reasons) have made x86 less attractive and ARM more acceptable for a Netbook. Some PMPs are almost ARM tablets.

Since an x86 CPU uses x100 to x400 more transistors than an ARM cpu core, Intel can never ever compete on SoC integration cost and power consumption.

Meanwhile Android gets the boot.

Is Android only technically OSS?

* Secret Road map

* New Versions in Secret, then released as "Open Source"

* Now booted out of Linux Kernel

Nokia with Symbian seems to be "really" going open source, but with Google is it just marketing?

x86 exploits do nothing on your ARM

Archos 605 (does have flash) and later ARM based Archos, Android phones, Symbain phones, iPhone and iPad are all ARM cpu based. x86 exploits can at worst simply crash them if tjhey do anything (which is unlikely)

The Problem is not Flash. But C and C++ and other derived languages programming model, especially for strings. That and the mentality of how virtually all C/C++/C# WinAPI libraries are written. If it wasn't Flash it would be something else.

JAVA is not the solution.

You can BSOD windows with a Java program. Thus an exploit could be crafted.

JAVA is nicely cross platform and very "objectafied" but it's a slow painful development process and slow runtime. VB6 running p-Code easily beats it.

Really?

A insightful Orlowski article with Comments Enabled?

* The iPad is a glorified photo Frame. many of Those now have WiFi and access to Flicker etc.

* The iPad is an appliance, not a Tablet computer, as such for people that want a large iTouch/iPhone rather than managing the complexity of a Netbook or real tablet, it will be successful.

* It may sell well.

* It may make ARM/nonX86 internet gadgets more acceptable. But Archos has had 3 generations of those (A605, A705, A5, Android A5), some even with 3G.

* It's not going to affect the internet much, except that Media & Gadget sites will have iPad links as well as the current iPhone links for custom app or content from them.

Google OTH is getting quite worrying.

Utter fail

The ipad is a really an Apple Controlled Browser appliance. Not a Tablet. I'd never buy it preferring something *I* have control over (Win7, WinCE, Symbian, Linux, Maemo, XP etc..)

ChromeOS should not be called an OS really. It's a more basic version of iPad controlled by a Monopolist.

XP

No need for IE6

Opera, Seamonkey, Safari, Firefox, Chrome and IE7 all work on XP for me.

Admittedly I only use IE7 for .CHM and other Microsoft stuff that doesn't work with Firefox.

Why on earth MS supporting IE6 for so much longer? If you have something that only runs IE6 you are in deeper trouble.

$130 vs £30

A £30 3G Modem aka Dongle, unsubsidized can cost more than $130.

Without subsidy, or lock to a Mobile Network, $130 for add-on 3G is about right.

Dead 3G

If this is popular it might eat x4 the data per user of an iPhone.

If it used on 3G instead of Broadband to view video, then the 3G networks will die at peak time (< 200kbps or even 50kbps), though to an extent the Data Cap will manage Contention. Networks with 1G Cap per month /30days will be much better performance than 10G download cap.

If you watch near HD quality video streaming, then 3G can support on average 3 users per Mast! The 7.2, 14.4, 21 and 42Mbps speeds are Sector PEAK speed for a single connected user with a perfect signal. Actual average throughput on a real sector changes by less than 2% moving from 3.6Mbps HSPDA to 21Mbps HSPA+ as the higher speeds need ever better signal and all 15 CDMA codes (i.e. only one connected user).

With more than 15 simultaneous connections on a sector the speed and latency goes to hell. Latency can rise to over 1200ms (compared to 120ms with a couple of connections) and speed drop to 50kbps. By the time all CDMA codes are in use the 3G cell can shrink to 1/4 size and the average throughput can drop to less than half. The big advantage of WiMax and LTE is thus not the peak speed, but virtually no loss of efficiency or cell shrinkage under load (i.e. 20 simultaneous streams might get 1/20 of speed). Though the peak speeds on LTE & WiMax are also best signal and one user. Real life for one user is typically 1/4 to 1/8th of peak with one user, and divide by number of simultaneous connections.

You need WiFi and decent uncapped real Broadband to watch Video.

Or get a 2T byte PVR and record ALL the channels at once off air on rotating 2 week loop, watch whatever you want on real HDTV or on the Gadget.

Did I mention that with multiple users, through a Wall, even 802.11n can't do true HD? Which is why BTvision installs Ethernet over Power Comtrend (PLT) adaptors.

Invents Portable Telly?

I've had an Archos 605 WiFi with 160G storage and 800x480 touch screen for 2 years. It works as a "Portable Telly" via Web + Flash, vTuner application (WiFi) and H.264, Xvid, DivX etc files. It's 4.8" so very portable

There are 7" and 10" Arm tablets PMPs too.

The only "advantage" for this seems to be iPhone Apps and eBooks (but with poor battery life for reader). The Battery life is good for Streaming Video/ PMP/Browser. Poor for an eReader by x10.

I'm sure this will be very successful, but there is ABSOLUTELY nothing ground breaking about it. The ChromeOS tablet sounds similar (and also wants to be avoided).

These are very expensive PMP/Personal Video players with Web & Email. If you really need apps get a real netbook and most if not all of iTune iPhone apps then not needed.