Question

So, the concept of making the emails you have on one's computer be the same list of emails you have on your phone, through a process called "syncing" is patented by Microsoft? Does this also cover the "syncing" of email on a email client and one's email "server" (IMAP) or prevent me from "syncing" with my laptop? Perhaps the language says "mobile phone devices" instead of just "mobile devices."

Mail/Calendar/etc syncing has been done and redone too many times to count. It's utter bullocks to patent such a thing. Might as well draft up my patent for having "code" on a "computer" that performs "operations" to generate a desired "output."

Troll, since that is what Microsoft is (and most companies that have papers with the USPO).

Title

There's a fairly decent example of something akin to this in the wild today: Athlon X3 processors. One core was disabled either for performace/stability issues (most likely) or to provide more X3 processors due to demand. We already see a plethora of motherboards with "unlock core" advertising, and many people attempting such. The core was disabled because it may cause your computer to crash, but people still want to unlock it and get an X4 for the price of an X3. Granted, they don't buy an X3 thinking they're going to get an X4, but it's a hope and they'll likely skimp and attempt and use those savings to buy a slightly better component of something else.

However, I only see this scheme working on laptops. If a desktop is involved, in two or three years, a $50 "upgrade" could be a new CPU that performs better than simply enabling HT on a 2-3yr old processor. I'm sure a QX6600 performs better than an E6600 with HT anyway, and they're even socket compatible. I'm sure some discount store still sells the leftovers (lowest is QX8300 or so now). And mentioning socket compatibility, perhaps this is why Intel changes its socket every year? That AM2+ socket is starting to look better and better.

Ah, but...

But does it come with a charger stand like my MX5000?

Bumper

I hope all the "size of the iPhone4" metrics all include the extra bulk the REQUIRED bumpers add.

And I guess it goes without saying that the "sleek" metal casing "Oooh Shiney!" factor can be negated due to a designer piece of plastic being required...

The Reply

The reply to such a letter will most likely be written and sent from "sjobs@apple.com" and be simply this bit of wisdom:

It will be safe. Trust Me.

Of course...

But of course, it's a Mac, so don't worry. It just works. (or in this case, Apple software for all those cross-bred Safari-on-Windows *cough* beta testers *cough* software users)

Title

I would say they're charging extra for tethering because people tend to think of a computer as a bottomless pit, and in many cases, they're right. I would have no qualms about downloading a 4GB torrent on my computer, however, with my smartphone, I'd start wondering if I actually had the storage for it. Basically, all that data would have to be streaming data, rather than downloaded bits, due to capacity of the device. Also, switching from "unlimited" to caps will prevent those tetherers from thinking they can download torrents on the go. (yes, I'm using torrents for an example, simply due to their usual nature of being monster sizes)

Title

I dislike the smell/taste of coffee myself, but I think the "tests" they conducted must have been some form of rubbish. I more fancy a dose of caffeine with some form of herbal coctail that (traditionally/arguably) preports to enhance mental function (I phrase it this way to not name any particular product). With this, I definately must admit it works very well. I went on the stuff during school years of early-morning classes (I'm a night owl), and not only did I not feel narcoleptic, I found myself able to think through programming tasks and such better. Of course, even now, having it in the morning still works beautifully, so perhaps I'm just "returning to normal" with the added herbal benefit...but I think the increased heart-rate/blood pressure helps with the drowsiness.

To each their own. You can offer me a cup of swill, but I will not drink, for I have better (for me).

Title

First, @fatchap, "transported in secured containers" is bullocks as a replacement or priority suppliment for encryption. I'm sure it takes more than just a hammer to get into 2048-bit-key encrypted data.

For companies dumping their 500GB or less data to tape, and expecting it to last indefinately, they should really research alternatives. 500GB hard drives are very common, and NTFS isn't going anywhere. Also, many people have demonstrated the longevity of computers with "antiquicated" interfaces (think of the Floppy Drive, if it took that long to die, just think how hard it will be to kill USB 1/2.0, not to mention the kit that supports USB 1/2.0, and the OS to read NTFS). I say NTFS, because FAT doesn't allow for >4GB files (think TrueCrypt containers or the like). Fortunately for those using TrueCrypt for encryption, it doesn't require a license key and can install on ANY of those "old" systems that support USB and NTFS....convenient that. No more having to find some server with an ancient SCSI card (with drivers!) to hook up a dusty tape drive that probably has grime on the read-heads anyway (be sure to run a tape cleaner through it first!!!). Then loading an OS that supports the archaic (ArcServe!) software, and don't forget the license key!. Then hope that the particular file you want hasn't been corrupted due to degredations of some sort, or even worse, the index.... Hard drives aren't impervious either, but I am willing to bet that a hardly-used hard drive sitting on a shelf will degrade slower than a tape sitting in the same environment.

That said, newer tapes and devices allow for storing many terabytes of data, which is currently impossible for single hard drives, and for large organizations, tape is the only way to go. However, the best solution would be regular restores and transfers of older tapes onto current-gen tapes to overcome degredation and outdating hardware. This of course is time consuming and probably best left to that 2nd year college student that the firm is interning for the summer...

Lastly, for those "just store it online" folks, some regulators will prohibit some organizations from using such services because it can't be guarenteed to be "safe." If the data isn't encrypted locally, then shipped over an encrypted VPN point-to-point-style, and stored in encrypted form on said remote system, without the keys, then it is useless. (Uploading a TrueCrypt container to such a service would be plausible...). However, I would doubt dumping 400GB worth of data to an online service would be remotely cost-effective, let alone having "archived" copies available. And if you have to archive backups locally, why even bother with an online service anyway? (No, I'm not talking about home users with 10GB of unchanging data, saving to a service in case their house burns down. They can [and probably should] use such services, since that is for whom they are designed.).

As for CDs/DVDs/Archival DVDs, these may look attractive, but I don't trust such media to store my data unless I have two copies. I've had enough disks that get a simple scratch for whatever reason, and then become coasters. And archival DVDs rated for >10yrs are simply as expensive as their tape counter-parts, but require even more uncommon hardware.

/rant

Title

It's about time the Antivirus 2008 people were caught. I can't walk 10 feet without bumping into someone that is gullible (read, uninformed) enough to actually follow the popups and manage to get this installed on their computer. I say, one they're convicted, force them to change the "now click here to pay us money" with a popup briefly educating the victim about malware scams, then automatically cleanly remove the malware.

Title

I agree with the idea of iPads being owned by Apple Fans, and thus getting the cult-response thumbs-up. Of course, it is a wonderful device to plod along on I'm sure. However, at the price of a decent laptop that can play Crysis, the only appeal it would have would be as a tablet as showcased in such Sci-Fi shows like Star Trek or Stargate. Of course, there is that lack of actually being able to print to your network printer, multitask (until v4), hook up an external HDD (yeah, you try stuffing all your favorite XViD/DiVX rips into that little storage space, let alone your MP3, oh sorry, your DRMed m4a collection). Oh, and that pesky annoyance of shorter battery life due to charge cycles? Just ship your whole device off to Apple and get a DIFFERENT iPad back (albeit "new" [probably refurbished]). So much for what you had saved on it. Hope you backed it up to an external HDD....

If it was capable of actually allowing you to connect and use anything you cared to (think netbooks here), preferably without having to shell out another $50-$100 for some Apple-branded specialty dongle, I would be more apt to buy one.

Title

One question, why would they worry about stuffing SLC into this item when their cache is meant as a read-cache? Sure, it will learn over time to stuff different info in the cache, but it would hardly change as much as a pure SSD would to worry about write-endurance. And since they're writing to the HDD first, they could hardly be concerned about write-latency (which is the other primary reason for SLC). Lastly, WTF only 4GB??? Win7 is twice that installed, not to mention if you stuff Office and a few choice games on there. That cache would fill up quite quickly. I would buy one if it had a 3.5" version with an 8-16GB cache.

Not Enough Competition

The industry (of course they would) howls that there is plenty (up to "3 or more"...) of competition? If they can get away with charging $0.10 per text one sends AND charge $0.10 for your 'victim' to receive said text...there's something wrong. And that is just for the CHEAPEST per-text rate. That and your data plan costs more than your home DSL....even the 40MB/mo ones... And of course they won't sell you a smartphone unless you get a dataplan.

I agree with the unbundling idea. Sure, people would lose subsidizing their phones, but it would also make wireless providers need to be cheaper to drive people to actually buy a smartphone and put it on their network instead of someone else's. No more $99/mo phone plan for the iPhone, just because you HAVE to be on AT&T. Fortunately, my BB is with a decent company (at least there's plenty (3 here) of BB carriers), and that should hold me over until I can pick up an Android of some flavor in a few months once v2.2 is mainstream.

Title

@mittfh: I agree. This is probably designed for operatives in China to be able to report to Home.

However, wouldn't this be best handled by some form of P2P VPN setup with layered, proxied encryption? In Gnutella lingo, if you VPNed to an Ultrakeeper, then were assigned a "virtual IP" by that Ultrakeeper (since it would know, or could query, if there was an available [IPv6 presumably] address), you could massquarade around on this P2P network as the virt IP and appear to be coming from the Ultrakeeper. When you do search requests, the request itself is encrypted (think SSL or somesuch), which are propogated THROUGH the Ultrakeeper, rather than from your computer, so it looks like the Ultrakeeper is performing the search. Using your virtIP as the "return" address in the network, which is being routed "physically" as the Ultrakeeper's IP, no one would know it was you, unless they could match you up as a machine that connected to said server through some ISP logging. But that is where layered proxying comes in. The CDC (Cult of the Dead Cow, not the gov agency) wrote a similar encrypted proxying network for their Chinese "associates." It would proxy HTTP requests through random end-points in the network, at any range of depth (usually around 6 or more) and popped out to the internet at some unrestricted (US, Sweden, etc) end-point which would perform the actually GET request and pass the info back along the line. Each point only knew the next point in line, rather than the whole. This kept anonymity between P2P users as well, as one machine did not know every node in the network, nor could they request that info.

Anyway, a good, multi-layed network with encrypted information ought to be enough of a deterant, until the Firewall in question decides to block VPN traffic. Then you could just masquarade as HTTPS or some other definately-allowed traffic (port 22 perhaps? We know China doesn't block that particular one...). Of course, the obvious downside is the amount of traffic that would be proxied through the "Ultrakeeper"s, but I'm sure the gov't would be more than happy to compensate people who wish to become one. $30/mo (extra, for upgraded internet services) for 200,000 ppl across the globe is less than an old F16 every couple of months. I say 200,000, since it would be quite a long time before all 200,000 are found out and blocked by the tGFoC if the initial connect-list is handled properly.

Title

The idea of "good enough," as stated in other comments, has entirely passed this x264 developer by. Of course, even I would bias my opinion toward something that I am actively contributing to. That said, I would agree that there are many things in VP8 that need some (or A LOT) of work, but that is what FOSS is all about: let the community do it. However, in the mean-time, the codec is "good enough." No one designs websites to be elegantly displayed on high-res 1920x1080+ LCD monitors. Likewise, no one would use VP8 to encode Blu-ray discs. VP8 is being pitched for web-hosted videos, not offline content. Therefore, it is EXPECTED to be lower-quality, grainy, blurry, etc. There's plenty of people that have no problem watching youtube videos that look like a VCR tape being eaten alive. A quite-decent picture (albeit not as sharp as high-quality h264) will most likely be more than adequate for the rescaled, mob-phone-shot vids of loser garage bands banging on trash cans in their underwear or an advert of someone brushing their teeth (it might even blur all those "white" teeth enough to make the ad believable! Bonus!).