visible progress

This of course is visible and announced progress.

Those who think that this is all -- need to review the history of F-117 Nighthawk.

We now know that it was operational many years before its existence was known (about 10 years IIRC). For all we know, this may be the public-PR face to distract from work behind the veil.

money to shareholders

"What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders." - Michael Dell, 1997

I think he's walking back that suggestion.

Hard to know where this will end up

Hard to know where this will end up. If history is any guide, they'll blow it.

GE was doing intercontinental networking in 1969.

GE has the first block of IP address space 3.xx.xx.xx (0, 1 and 2 have special purposes).

But shortsighted management frittered it all away during the 80's.

Quite sad, actually.

Maybe no-one noticed that Apple blocked it already ?

"The post is required, and must contain letters."

It does seem that Apple is getting attentive to security issues. It has taken a while but, if this is any indication, the reaction time has improved considerably.

Uninstall Java ?

Uninstall Java ?

Better solution would be to uninstall Windows.

Christmas is coming

Christmas is four days away and the Microsoft store is *so* empty. The Apple store in the local mall is packed these days.

When I chanced by the Microsoft store at seriously-upscale Pentagon City, the mall was busy but the store had ten staffers and two customers. TWO. I have never seen an Apple store with so few.

temporary pause

This must be very recent, as Rachel called me yesterday.

These folks will just start it up again as, if I understand it, these are civil issue and not criminal. With criminal, you go to jail. We need these folks to do cooler-time for this to stop.

No surprise

I think Apple has been hearing for some time that iTunes needs major work, especially on Windows. I guess that some have not been listening.

Having now seen what happens when you ship an un-ready product, folks have decided to take the time to do it better.

A good plan indeed.

laid =/= paid

Technicolor, Cinemascope, IMAX, MogulVision -- what more do we need ??

Hey, Harvey, try "sanity".

As the music industry discovered, people will pay a reasonable price for content (aside from a small number).

The important principle for you to realize is that, if it's digital and you do not have physical control over each and every instance, it will be copied. Copy-protection stuff has been and will always be broken (for the commercial distribution under consideration here).

So start with that as your premise and build your *new* business model from there. Quite simple, really.

Let's try again

"Presumably if iOS Maps was better that Google's offering"

Let's try again, shall we ...

Presumably, if iOS maps were better than Google's offering, ..."

dates on updates

Oh great. A big press release about a big update dump. Thanks are due from Macau, Singapore, Sweden, the US, Thailand, Taiwan, Italy, Great Britain, Denmark, Norway and Canada ... and maybe other places

Cluestick for Google - we know that some of your images are old. No problem - they're free. But it would be really REALLY helpful to know just how old. As in - if it's two months then it's close, but if it's five years then we have no idea. It would be nice to know which. And in the absence we have to assume five years which means that it's useless.

Think of the savings !!

CIO's are tired of being beaten up over IT budgets and see BYOD as a way of solving the problem. The consequent expenses ... well, they'll come later.

For those of you too young to remember, this is similar to the "movement" in the 70's towards departmental minicomputers (think, DEC and similar). Departments were unable to get work done because the mainframe-based IT folks took years to do anything. So the departments just started doing it themselves. The "PC revolution" was, in fact, less of a revolution than the minicomputer one.

BYOD is another turn of the wheel. So, read your history to see where this is going. Look especially at (1) what IBM does today and, (2) what DEC does.

Ikea catalog[ue]

"From now on, the items formerly known as "chairs" and "tables" will be referred to as "Ikea merchandise."

I wonder if it lists a "Ballmer chair" ?? What's that in Swedish, I wonder? Thrön Akros ?

at least for this week.

Next wek is coming next week.

What new name will we have then, kiddies ??

DVD

"boot off the DVD"

Well, you may not have noticed that the very-iMac-like HP Spectre One doesn't have a DVD drive. That's the direction in which things are going. So MS is quite sensible in not replying upon it.

But this line about being unable to partition a USB-stick. That's just incompetence, pure and simple.

the threads, my dear Watson, the threads

That this was fake was obvious to anyone who has ever looked closely at screw threads. There are various kinds, to be sure, but never anything like this. One doesn't ever make threads like that.

Hello Dick - TIA is alive and well

These people are looking for the magic bullet - guaranteed information analysis to predict an attack.

We've all been down these roads so many times that the ruts are well-worn -- there IS no magic bullet

Get over it folks -- there's nothing that works as well as motivated, intelligent people to track down "problems". Nothing. Not TIA. Not the newer stuff that's being peddled by major-contributor defense-contractor folks. Which is mostly the same with newer, glitzier labels.

A clue-stick hint for folks who think they have a better scheme -- run it on your own dime for a couple of years, providing info to Intelligence folks gratis. If you have "the goods", they'll be convinced. If you don't (and most of you don't) then we taxpayers won't have had our money spent chasing a poorly-formed illusion.

I'm tired of spending money on really stupid **** that never had the likelihood of panning out. And ticked at the managers who (still) believe that the taxpayers have given them a blank check. Account for what you spend and what you do, or move over for someone who will.

easy vs. hard

Given the state of mind of most people after a theft or loss, it ought to be (relatively) easy to lock an account against being exploited. Maybe even just for 24 hours.

But it should be quite hard to reset the password so a new one can be established.

now for the inquiry

It's time for there to be a judicial inquiry into the actions of the Trustee - very unusual to say the least.

And also into the way the case was originally brought and pursued - some executives should be looking at jail time as a result.

simple

Just call it "Square".

if not now, when?

NYSE has been seeing this stuff for a while and has not done anything about it..

Computers can do things much faster than any human, and screw them up much faster than any human.

It's time that NYSE and other exchanges established limits so that the volatility swings from a single company do not exceed the net worth of the company. That is, if a company has "middling" net worth, then massive trades should not be accepted. If it has "low" net worth, then the limit should be lower. If it has a lot to lose, then the limit should be higher.

Having a small company generate a real-quick loss of a half-billion dollars is just stupid

what's time to a pig?

Do the fuel, oxygen and supplies actually care how long it takes?

15.7 %

Seriously ?? 15.7 per cent of revenue ?? For USF ??

Doesn't sound accurate to me.

cooling-off time

My take is that the Feds have realized that they bit off too much with this one. They were probably expecting all parties to settle and now face a challenge.

OTOH, Apple's MFN clause is ripe.

I'm expecting a settlement to be announced in the quiet period after the U.S. elections and before the inauguration. MFN will go away but most everything else will stay as-is.

but wait a minute ...

I seem to recall that if there's an infected machine on your network, then you'll get your Windows updates from that, rather than directly from Microsoft.

So, how does this plan from Redmond get the correct update to you ?? It seems that you'll be requiring some magic fingers-on-the-keyboard somehow.

actually, no.

"That's an amazingly fast shift, and it says a great deal about how open source drives innovation."

Actually, no. It says a great deal about how Oracle ownership drives open-source innovation.

"Windows"

Microsoft could have avoided all this if tablet OS was named something other than "Windows".

But that would not do for Redmond, would it?

or ...

better - "circling the rim"

not installed by default

I'm not sure whether the agreed transition of Java support for Mac OS X from Apple to Oracle has happened. Apple still supplies it but do we know who does the maintenance?

Regardless of that, the plain fact is that Mac OS X 10.7 Lion does NOT install Java by default. Anyone who wants it can get it, but it's not present unless the user specifically installs it.

prior art

I think that the HPs actions here have a non-trivial resemblance to the cost-cutting scheme at Circuit City.

And we all know where that led.

pity

Pity that is almost directly in line with the runways at Dulles Airport.

Any way the wind blows money

AT&T seem to have no moral core. No honesty. No "do the right thing"

This is the way their wireless systems operate, and I'm not surprised to find it in their other operations.

If corporations have rights as "persons" to make political contributions (as they do sine the "Citizens United" case") then why can't they go to jail when they break the law?

almost certainly legal

This is almost certainly legal if the parents are paying for the phone. After all, it's just tracking their own phone. SInce it seems to be restricted to phones on the "Family Share Plan" then I'd guess that the parents are paying for it all.

If the kids are paying then that's a whole different issue.

dumb

I think the appropriate term for Samsung's activity is

"own goal"

business as usual

This has all the taste of doing stuff in the kernel that properly belongs in user-space.

Windows has been doing this since forever, and I guess it isn't going to stop. It's not a coding issue, but one of system architecture.

upgrade

T-M is supposed to get some spectrum as part of the breakup fee.

I hope it's in ranges that are the iPhone supports. Then I'll think seriously about dumping AT&T