Re: Microsoft also boasts of 20,000 apps?
If they're what we're now supposed to call "Windows Store Apps", they'll all run on the RT.
You can't compile an app that references desktop components for the Store. I tried, just to check.
4790 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Nov 2009
Couldn't think where else to post this.
I've decided to do something about my old Motorola RAZR V3xx.
I love this thing. The form factor is perfect. It's pocket size, it's damage resistant, it's HSDPA, it's easy to use, it never drops calls, it gets four days usage from its tiny battery without issue.
The only problem is the usual Motorola problem - the OS is dogshit.
So, i thought, I'm still a programmer. I can do embedded work, I do it all the time. Why not?
Why not? Because it's 2013 and there are no available resources to study from is why not. So. If any of you have any dim and distant memories or even better, current links on how MotoRazr v series phones actually worked - and I want to go much further than just skinning - could you let me know?
Ta.
you don't have to be a nutter to appreciate the intimate connection between economic power and political power.
You also don't have to be a nutter to see how close Obama is to Google. He pretty much has to beat through a crowd of oompah-loompahs with a baseball bat to get to his desk.
I'm not certain who you're asking but I simply reported who had what, based on gender.
I also wonder if the earlier poster is of the belief that every man who doesn't have an iPhone is gay. Anecdotal evidence would tend to indicate that the iPhone is actually of more use to gay men because it has a selection of apps targeted at that demographic.
It's relatively clear cut, where studies are not publicized in advance. If they are publicized, they tend to be wrecked by those who would like the outcome to "prove" that culling doesn't work.
In non-compromised studies -
1. TB incidence in cattle reduces sharply following a badger cull
2. TB incidence in cattle rises sharply in areas directly adjacent to any badger cull
3. TB incidence in badgers reduces sharply following a badger cull
I find the third outcome interesting, as it seems to indicate that the sick badgers are the ones slow/ill enough to get culled. One could infer that a cull therefore substitutes for the influence of a natural predator in terms of species health.
Partly. Also iOS users are less likely likely to be innate tinkerers who will crack your Java and post it free download sites. And less likely to think "This app sucks, I'll write a better one" and actually do so.
iOS has significant benefit in terms of ease of use for users. The drawback is the extremely high barriers to entry (cost a Mac to develop on, need to learn the filth that is Objective-C) for developers.
Can you explain why?
By which I mean - is this an aesthetic choice only, or is there something about Windows 8 that makes it unsuitable for you to work with?
If the former and you genuinely would sacrifice the speed, efficiency, utility, security and let's not piss about here, actual 32-bit operation at minimum and support for software written later than 1999, then I stand by my original statement - there's something deeply wrong with you. You're a twat.
So your writing for APIs then you still know what you are writing for yes?
Now I am confused. You said in a previous comment that you have known hardware to make it easier to write for. But have just said you write for APIs.
You do. But an API cannot magically give you 8 GB of RAM or force you to use 1910x1080. It cannot magically produce Catalyst drivers that don't crash. It can't produce GeForce drivers that don't conflict with your RealTek sound drivers (insert teeth grinding here). It won't force you to install somewhere on your C drive or even assume that you HAVE a C drive.
A console guarantees the target. A PC never will without causing massive nerdrage.
Why are you having such a hard time with this concept?
Oh, you write for APIs but APIs aren't magical. They depend mainly on drivers and driver functionality.
See, if I'm writing a game using DirectX then I only address DirectX. But DirectX is heavily optimized for the 360 as it stands now. It is, after all, still a DirectXBox.
DX is less optimized for every single graphics card in the entire world because duh. Different cards support the API in different ways and each has their own little niggles. Does it work? Sure. But how well it works depends on AMD, NVidia and Intel and, more specifically, the people who write their drivers which are updated approximately every other week, as opposed to the static optimized drivers in the XBox firmware.
Any company that released a game that insisted on a particular motherboard, a specific chip from a specific company, a specific graphics card - nope, a cheaper, more expensive or upgraded version will not do - a specific blu-ray drive with known spin-rates and the equivalent of a VPN to a dedicated gaming network would be laughed out of business in days and you know it.
A console provides absolutely this certainty. This certainty is what breeds performance and longevity.
A PC is great for gaming - I game on mine when I have time, which is admittedly rare - but a console has advantages in the consumer market that no PC will ever come close to.
while I take your point entirely, the thing about consoles is that, as a developer, you know exactly where the target is. You don't have dick about with whether the user has a decent GPU or is going to bitch that his nice shiny Ultrabook with Intel's excuse for gfx onboard won't run it at over 8fps. You don't have to aim low on memory requirements. You know exactly what the sound output is and how the controllers work. Nobody is going to demand to remap the controls for their Logitech macro-able cheat-like-fuck keyboard. In short, you can optimize the holy hell out of everything because you have a static target.
How old is the 360 now? And how good does, for example, Assassin's Creed 3 look on it? Yet the hardware is basically obsolete by PC standards. You'd need a PC significantly heftier than a 360 to even consider playing it but when the hardware is fixed, you can work miracles.
If this thing or the PS4 goes for £400 or less, it's cheaper than a current best-of-breed GPU. And it will last you approximately five times as long.
All things considered, that's not bad.
As for "getting benefits regardless of your income", that is not true. -
Prosecution presents Exhibit A, winter heating allowance. No means testing, payable to anyone over pension age.
There are other like this too, including non-eligibility for NI payments which effectively can add 11% to any income. Any income.
I don't think you get it, PJI. My tax is not paid into a deposit account for me to somehow claim when it's my turn. It pays baby boomers so that they can afford to go on holidays and drive cars that I couldn't even afford to insure. You don't get it back.
You get benefits if you can't afford to live to a basic standard on what you have. Unless you're over 60 and a woman or over 65 and a man. Then you can get benefits regardless of your income and standard of living.
That is an expensive and yet, when the grey vote outnumbers the working vote, inevitable madness.
Other misconceptions about old people include
1. "they deserve special treatment because they fought in the war"
even though most people over 60 were born after WW2 and are more likely to have have been spliffing up to the Byrds than saving anyone from anything
2. "they're so poor"
even though the state pension is the only benefit that continually rises above the rate of inflation and there are endless free handouts - winter heating allowance, for example - which are not means-tested. You just have to over 60 (for women) or 65 (for men). Multimillionaires collect their winter fuel allowance because as far as they're concerned, fuck the taxpayer.
3. "we need to take care of them". One of the consequences of the Baby Boom is that pensioners now outnumber taxpayers of below pension age. And pensioners vote in far higher proportion. When you think about it, this makes sense - political parties court them with more and more benefits at everyone else's expense so they actually have something to vote for. The rest of us don't unless we happen to be lobbyists or bankers.
Seriously, "bad at IT" is the very least of the misconceptions about pensioners that we need to start rejecting.
Are you seriously trying to find a defence for Google on this one?
The answer is quite simple - Windows Phone does not report users' browsing and app choices to Google. Google would prefer that you used Android, which does report on you.
Therefore, they have decided not to do anything or allow any access that would make Windows Phone more popular because more WP users = less spyware Androids out there.
Logical enough for you?
No, you did not read this correctly.
Microsoft's new app has no access to the Youtube ad API because Google want it that way, and therefore it cannot serve ads.
It doesn't block the ads. It is literally disbarred (by Google) from seeing them.
Think about it before you jerk your knee so hard that it snaps.
What was this about? Nerds working at Redmond? I don't think there's any question of that.
Serious attempt to provide a service on paid time? Unlikely.
Proof-of-concept for transliteration engine in a language where you can't offend any native speakers with dodgy translations and/or nerdly hobbyists working unpaid overtime? Highly likely.
Here's the thing I can't understand.
If biodiesel is absolutely as green as you like, totally renewable and ecomentally awesome, how come the UK Government applies tax and excise duty at exact the same rate as normal (non-bio) diesel?
And given the slightly lower power output of biodiesel, am I right in thinking that this makes it the single most heavily taxed form of fuel (on a per watt generated basis) in the entire world?
So all these fuel taxes (which, if you recall, they used to tell us were for "green" reasons) are actually a massive shot in the foot because they're taxing the "good" fuels even more heavily than the "bad" fuels?
Or does it just go to pay for bailing out bankers?
It's already huge. I mean seriously, the sheer number of tills and petrol pumps that run Windows Embedded is staggering. Where have you been, man?
MS don't make much money off it - I believe a license currently goes around $3US for a 100+ unit install - but it doesn't crash, it does what people want and it's easy to code for.
House of Fraser actually use purely for the embedded browser so that all their tills connect directly to the central (non public) web servers on a sealed network. This gives them security and direct access to inventory management and billing.
Nothing could possibly go wrong
It certainly hasn't, so far at least. And it's been around since before XP.
A "smart" watch doesn't have to be be all that smart. Really, it's just a remote display/controller, possibly with accelerometer/gyro/pedometer functions for added value.
The phone does all the heavy lifting.
I'm interested, but the beautiful brass Fossil on my wrist is going nowhere until there's something comparable.