Re: How about the REST of the "Browsers"?

Why should that graph concern anyone, or show that IE is better as you seem to be trying to imply? The number of blocked threats is irrelevant, the number of unblocked threats is all that matters. The graph is silent there.

Isn't it possible that there are websites that do something like 'if browser = IE then attempt exploit' but maybe don't do it for some other browsers? This is rather like saying Windows AV software is better than the same company's AV software on Mac OS, because the Windows version neutralizes 100x more viruses!

Re: Just one more thing...

Sure it is interesting for the rest of us. Anything that increases sales of 4K monitors causes them to be made in larger quantities, which brings down the price for those of us who might be willing to pay a few hundred dollars extra for one, but not willing to pay a few thousand extra.

The idea that Apple may start selling the first mass market 4K monitor excites me, even though I will not be buying one, because it will spur a long overdo increase in resolutions for monitors. Say what you will about Apple and Retina, but they pushed things in the small device market to the point where even a $100 Android phone now ships with a resolution better than any phone anywhere had before the iPhone 4 shipped.

Apple didn't "invent" high resolution screens, but they purchased enough of them that they spurred the industry into providing them at cheap price points more quickly than they otherwise would have. I'm eager for them to do the same with desktop monitors, which have been stuck at 1920x1080 (with a big jump higher for 2560x1600) forever, even as freaking PHONES get that same 1920x1080 resolution in a 5" screen!

You are assuming that this will be keyed to the IMEI. Given that there are some unique hardware serial numbers embedded in each iPhone, it makes more sense that is what they'd use.

Even if it isn't perfectly secure, if they raise the bar significantly for the amount of work/knowledge required to get a stolen iPhone into resellable condition it would greatly reduce the number of thefts. If it cost an extra $100 of work (to pull a number from my ass) to get a stolen iPhone into a state where it could be resold, the value of stolen iPhones instantly drops by $100.

Add enough extra expense, and even if remains technically possible to steal and resell an iPhone, it is no longer worth the trouble for criminals and they start looking for GS4s instead, or go back to pickpocketing.

It is rather like the problem of being part of a group of people running from a hungry tiger. You don't need to outrun the tiger, just outrun the fat guy. And hope there isn't a second tiger.

Re: Just one more thing...

I'm sure around the time Apple starts selling these new Mac Pros they'll offer a 4K monitor. I'm willing to bet it replaces the current 30" Cinema display at the same price.

If Apple's is too high priced for you, or you think 30" is too small, buy 3 50" 4K Seiki TVs for a TOTAL of $4500...

Re: CEO of company slags off major competitor

Jobs spent much more time during these events talking about how great Apple stuff was, and mostly left insults against competitors up to the users. Apple may have poked fun at their competition with stuff like the ads with the Mac guy and the PC guy, but they never said the kind of stuff Cook said, which was basically "you suck, neener neener neener!"

While I'm sure this plays well with the audience at the WWDC, it makes Cook and Apple look small when he's quoted in the media.

Re: All rather pathetic

I can't figure out if you're being sarcastic or are an Apple fanboy. I'm downvoting you either way, despite owning an iPhone myself. The idea that there is one "best" phone is ludicrous, as people have different needs and wants, different people will conclude various phones are best for them.

Giving out a "best phone" award is like giving out an award at school for most popular. Maybe you can brag about it for a day and a half, but a year later it is forgotten by everyone.

Re: Conspiracy theory

Please. Are you claiming Android has no known exploits? Everywhere knows it has security holes, just about all software of any significance does. The article even mentions that the malware uses several previously unknown exploits to do its dirty work.

Obviously Google will fix the ones they know about when they make a new release, but that really only helps the people on devices running stock Android who can and will update right after it is released. If Microsoft was able to make Windows 8.1 100% secure at release, there would still be Windows exploits out in the wild 10 years from now, because there will be a lot of people running something older than 8.1. And even Windows 8.1 machines would have security issues, because of all the third party software they might be running (Adobe, Java, etc.)

Re: Conspiracy theory

No, they see a second source of revenue if Android users start buying AV software.

Re: Manufacturer & Mobile operator

Android is open source, how exactly is Google supposed to force updates on Android phones? If they had code to do that, it would be among the first things Samsung removed in the process of building their own version to install on a GS4.

As for why Samsung doesn't do it, they've got a ton of different models, with more coming out every month. Even the models that use the same version of Android probably have different bits of customization in them, simply to patch existing versions to fix a security issue is probably a big job. Let alone taking a newer generic Android version from Google, adding back the customizations for their dozens of models, and then testing it to make sure their customizations didn't break anything when matched against the newer Android code. No wonder it is mostly only the high end Samsung models that get updates, and even then not in a particularly timely fashion.

Re: Couple of questions

Who says it was an app? Maybe it can be spread from an infected PC on the same network, or spread from an infected phone to other phones using the same AP, maybe you just have to visit the wrong website, or maybe visit the right website that unfortunately has a contract with the wrong ad provider.

There are a lot of ways for malware to spread beyond downloading dodgy apps. It's just that that's been such an easy path so far that malware writers haven't really had to try as hard. Sort of like how PC malware used to be spread by infected floppies and .exe attachments, and because that was so easy there was no reason to write something as complex as Stuxnet.

Re: Good op-ed, but unfortunately Canada is probably part of the system.

Probably true that Canada doesn't need to depend on the US for defense, though your GDP is puny measured against that of China, and they can make better robots than you, and you have natural resources they want (to build more robots)

Since you have to cooperate with the US in many ways, whether you like it or not, simply because you have the misfortune to share a huge ungoverned border with the US, you might as well take advantage of the situation by letting the US pay for much of your defense.

Re: Why be bothered about 'the cloud' in particular?

Forget about 'US cloud technologies'. Pretty much 60% (or is it 80%? does it even matter?) of all internet traffic gets routed via some major bit of infrasstructure in California, so pretty much every packet can be inspected

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Uh, no. Unless they've figured out FTL fiber technology, the latency alone makes that a ridiculous assertion. Not to mention gigantic such a facility would have to be.

Are you going to tell us next that we don't see it because it is underground in Mojave desert (as are the power lines for the gigawatts of power such a facility would require)

Crazy claims make it easy for people to dismiss most everything as the ramblings of conspiracy theorists. Here's how it works:

1) people in the know make claims that are seen by the average person as conspiracy theories (like the room 641A stuff) so the mass media ignores it and the government, if they comment at all, denies it

2) it eventually comes out that they're right and the mass media reports on it

3) people in power downplay the significance and create cover stories, claiming it is limited in scope and not as bad as previous reports have indicated

4) the mass media start to backpedal a bit, not wanting to question those in power and risk losing access to people in power

5) tin foil hatters extrapolate anything being reported by the mass media as being only the tip of the iceberg of what really must be going on, so they start making claims that defy the laws of physics, economics, etc.

6) the public gets wind of the crazy theories, deciding to believe the government's cover stories because the alternative is becoming identified with the crazy conspiracy theorists

Re: invention

The idea of a DVR was obvious. I was using a VCR in the late 80s/early 90s and wishing there was a way to record programs to hard drives so they'd have random access. I'm sure there were a million others who thought the same thing.

What Tivo invented were some of the little touches that are obvious only in hindsight, like how when you're fast forwarding quickly through commercials and hit 'play' to resuming watching after you see a bit of your program, it automatically backs up by an amount determined by how fast your were fast forwarding, so you don't need to back up every time like you did with VCRs.

Of course, the patent system being what it is, they probably do/did have a patent that covered every instance of recording broadcast video onto a hard drive.

Re: PS4 will likely be the same

That assumes people don't refuse to buy Xbox One over this. From all the complaints about this and predictions of doom for Xbox One, that's probably not the best assumption.

The game companies that went exclusively Xbox One as you suggest would quickly go bankrupt, and those less stupid game companies that produced titles for PS4 would benefit. Sure, it sounds good to sell games for a console that has no used market. It also sounds good to Ford and Toyota to sell cars that don't have a used market, but they'd quickly find that they simply gave GM and Honda a lot of new customers if they changed policies to prevent their customers from selling their cars used without handing them a cut.

If Sony does the same thing, it won't help Xbox One, it'll just mean that this will be the last generation of consoles.

Re: Apple fines its staff? WTF?

It says Cupertino fines them. That's the name of the city. That's actually not much for the number of employees they have. Cupertino must not have very many parking meters.

@gujiguju - solar powered supercharging stations

Musk has another IPO, called SolarCity. Buying a Tesla means that you have access to solar-powered Supercharging stations for free, FOREVER

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The supercharging stations aren't solar powered, the solar power is to "offset" the energy consumed by the supercharging stations. You'd need acres of PV panels to provide the juice to serve as many cars as a typical gas station sees in a day. Maybe out in the desert that would be a feasible plan (assuming you had the grid connection for net metering, otherwise add a small warehouse for all the batteries) But not in the cities, where, you know, most people tend to live.

Re: HTPC?

Or you could join the modern age and use a touchscreen device (phone, tablet, iPod) as your remote over Wifi for the ever growing number of IP controllable devices, along with something like a GlobalCache gateway for the IP to IR translation to handle older IR only devices.

Because, let's face it, IR passed its sell by date years ago. Yes, it is ubiquitous in CE devices, but I'd sure hate to wake up in 2033 and find whatever CE devices we're using then are still controlled by something as archaic and limited as IR!

Maybe the warlords will be happy to have it?

How exactly will the warlords stop it, if they untethered and high enough that even those warlords that get ahold of shoulder launched SAMs can't reach them?

I think a bigger concern is that the warlords might get more out of this development than those they're oppressing. This would greatly improve their ability to oversee and communicate with their soldiers. One guy working for them sees a convoy loaded with food driving by, alerts HQ, and HQ alerts the nearest unit to deploy a roadblock and take the food. That would be an unfortunate improvement over the haphazard way this is accomplished now (which is mostly randomly set up roadblocks being in the right place at the right time)

@eAbyss

The article didn't quote all of what he said, but that's not surprising in a Reg article designed to get views and promote a healthy fanboy flamewar. If you google it you can find better written articles that include more of what he said.

Here's what he said of watches: "I think for something to work here, you first have to convince people it's so incredible that they want to wear it." He's not assuming that if Apple introduced a watch people are going to buy it. They're going to have to have a reason to do so. Assuming Apple releases it, it will be up to the market to decide whether it meets the "incredible" standard or not.

I think he'd agree that if glasses provided an "incredible" experience you could get people to wear them too. The point was that the bar to get people to wear a watch, which is pretty unobtrusive as far as wearable tech goes, is a bit lower than the bar to get people to wear glasses, which is about as obtrusive at it gets, short of an implant. I think that would be a reasonable way to look at it, given that most adults wore watches a few decades ago, but most people only wear glasses when necessary (prescription, or sun)

The privacy concerns of Google Glasses may prove to be a big roadblock to them, something which wouldn't affect a watch (I'm assuming a watch would not have a camera)

Re: Unknown brand

No, there are three kinds: iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, and "other". Maybe if you feel charitable you can include Windows phones and Blackberries as categories, as while they have small user bases, they are as rabid as any Apple or Android fanboy.

But aside from that, while it'll rankle the fanboys who prefer HTC or whatever, it is pretty much true. That's no doubt in large part due to the fact that Apple and Samsung are pretty much the only ones who advertise, and the average person doesn't spend hours online researching when they buy a phone. Most people buy based on a combination of price, what their friends have, and what they've heard of. The weighing of the different factors may be different between different people, but that's what it comes down to for most.

@mmeier

Books can not be "copied and sold on" as easily as a game can. And they typically take longer to reach the "used book" market than games.

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To your second point. Its the game publisher's fault games enter the used market too quickly. They must not be very good if people get bored with them that quickly. Sometimes you buy a book that you read once and know you'll never read again, so you sell it or give it to a friend. Other times you buy a book and you come back to it again and again over the years. The game publishers need to write those kind of games, not the kind you can beat in a week. Who wants to pay $60 for that?

To your first point, I think most people would have no problem with Microsoft or Sony doing something to block you from playing a game off your hard drive once it had been installed on someone else's hard drive (unless you got the disc back and re-authorized it on your hard drive, which would de-authorize it on the other person's hard drive) Making it so one disc can only be able to be played on one console at a time is fine. Just don't make people pay to install it on different consoles, or otherwise cause problems that prevent someone from loaning out their game to others in the same way they can loan out a book, a DVD, or their car.

You know damn well that what Microsoft is reportedly doing goes way beyond this. They're trying to make it the equivalent of having to pay a publisher if you borrowed a friend's book in order to read it, or having to pay Ford something if he sold you his car. Games are not special and deserve absolutely NO special treatment. If the console gaming industry can't survive playing by the same rules as everyone else, then it deserves to die. I'm sure some people mourned the loss of the telegraph, too, but that doesn't mean we should have let the telegraph industry survive longer by letting them make special rules.

@Charles 9

I think the big thing is that books, cars, appliances, and so on are self-contained. They operate completely in and of themselves with nothing else required except maybe for utility supplies (power, water, etc.).

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Making up definitions to suit you, I guess? How are LPs, 8 track, CDs, VHS tapes or DVDs self contained? They aren't any more than a game disc is. Both require a separate device to "enable" them. So if you think game companies have a right to restrict used sales, I guess Hollywood really missed its chance!

The courts have allowed EULAs only to the point where they don't overstep what is legally allowable There are illegal things in EULAs now, but they've never been tested in court, because Microsoft and other software makers don't want them tested, because they know they'd lose.

If they upheld the right for Microsoft to create a EULA with illegal terms, such as those that restricted sale of used items, what is to stop Ford from selling cars with a EULA? They could require you to visit a Ford authorized service center every 10,000 miles to have the car checked out and enabled for another 10,000 miles of travel. If you refuse, once you go over the 10,000 mile mark, the next time you turn the car off, it won't start, but flash a message telling you to call a Ford service center and have it towed in for service. They could require you to pay Ford a fee to transfer the warranty to someone else, or even to sell the car to someone else.

Why should that kind of thing be permitted for software, but not for cars? Just because of a EULA, and because you have invented this "self-contained" and "enabler" bullshit to suit your argument?

Re: Research is needed

Jamaica?

Re: Patent pools

All of the 'benefits' you've just listed pale into insignifigance when compared to having people like Apple use your patented technology, which you put into the pool, only to then tell you they won't be paying the same as everyone else who uses the patented technology, they'll be paying whatever they see fit. Just ask Samsung, who've been royally fucked over in exactly that way.

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That would be true if correct, but you're apparently brainwashed by Google's lie. Motorola wants Apple to pay 2.5% of the cost of their ENTIRE PHONE to license a few patents. No one pays that. Not even close. What they pay is 2.5% of the price of a single chip that goes in their phones, and the chip costs only a few dollars. It is not fair, reasonable, or non-discriminatory to charge one company 15 cents for your patents and another company $15.

It is a blatant violation of the deal Motorola signed that made those patents subject to FRAND. Google knows it, but they rely on clueless fools like you who believe the "Don't be evil" lie and think they're in the right and Apple and Microsoft are in the wrong. Apple and Microsoft are in the wrong on some things, but here Google is in the wrong and Apple and Microsoft are 100% in the right. I know it hurts Google fanboys to read that, but its true.

This was all a scam Google concocted as their rationale for massively overspending to buy Motorola, where they terminated the licensing deals with Qualcomm for only the chips they sell to Apple, which Apple had been paying the 2.5% on (to Qualcomm, which Qualcomm then passed back to Motorola along with the licensing costs that anyone else buying Qualcomm chips, like Samsung, was also paying) They pulled the same basic scam on Microsoft.

The courts have rightly said this is complete bullshit, and won't let them do it. No company is under any obligation to license any of their patents to anyone else. Unless they sign an agreement, like the cross licensing agreements Apple and Microsoft have. Or like the agreements companies sign when they join a standards group. They can't decide later that it is in their best interests to back out from that agreement, any more than you can go back to the house you sold in Malibu 20 years ago and say "I know I sold that to you for $200,000, but now that its worth $6.5 million I think it was a mistake, I'd like to go back on that deal".

Re: tax intellectual property!

I've seen this proposed before, for dealing with all types of property - i.e. copyright and trademark as well. Its a fine idea, but the republicans will not consider any sort of new tax, unless it was paired with getting rid of an old tax. That is, dumping the corporate income tax. That can't pass because the democrats won't stand for it! And so it goes...

Patent pools

No-one will submit anything of worth to a patent pool in future, it's just been shown to give away everything for no benefit, and you're far better off keeping it to yourself to allow room to sue later.

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You've got a pretty narrow minded point of view here. Basically if Google/Motorola can't use it as a hammer in the way Microsoft uses whatever patents they've got that get Android OEMs to pay up, the whole idea of patent pools is flawed.

The reality is that companies have a tremendous incentive to become part of standards committees that decide the next generation standards:

1) they get to help decide the direction of those standards, instead of letting others do it for them

2) where they contribute their own patents they're turning the standards in directions where they've got engineering expertise, which may give them a leg up against the competition, especially during the crucial early adopter phase for new technology where the chance to become one of the major established players (or an also ran) is best

3) they don't have to worry about other members of the pool suing them over any of the patents within it (OOPS, I guess Google/Motorola violated this rule, but aside from them it has been almost universally observed in the tech world for several decades)

When the next generation standards get decided, anyone is free to sit on the sidelines and not take part. If they're lucky, maybe the technology that gets adopted is something they have patents to cover, and if so they might be able to cash in. On the other hand, maybe the experts in the standards committee are smarter than the average patent officer and able to do patent searches better, so they just design around your patents and you're left out in the cold with patents that have almost zero value.

Unless you believe you own some sort of basic patent that covers ever possible implementation (the type that the lawyers for a collective of dozens of tech companies would probably have little trouble getting invalidated) sitting it out is almost certainly a losing strategy and a way to guarantee your company is not seen as a tech leader. That would be sad fate indeed for a company with the history of a Motorola, especially if it was done out of clueless spite.

Re: Through Internet2 we can support a small number of very large flows

Fair point, but when what we know today as the Internet was ARPANET, it was just an experimental research network, and they had no idea it would grow into anything like what it was. Commercial use was forbidden until the 90s. There was no reason for MIT not to take a whole class A, because what possible worry would there be to run out of an address space measured in the billions when there's a limit of only a few tens of thousands of entities that would ever connect to what it was when these allocations were made in the mid 80s?

No worry of this with Internet2, even if they were still using a 32 bit address space, because technologies it develops would be adopted piecemeal by the real Internet. It isn't as though we'll say on Jan. 1 201x, everyone in the world has to update all network related hardware and software because they're picking up and moving everything over to Internet2. So if you get an email telling you to do that, it is probably spam :)

Re: Working OK?

I was kind of thinking the same thing. I haven't been reading about massive power outages all over the place, and my power at home has failed only twice (during storms, for a total of a few minutes) in the past two years.

I guess they've been smart enough to keep the SCADA stuff on a network separate from their internal one after all, despite all the hand wringing predictions about how when hackers turned their attention at US power grids we'd become a third world country overnight.

Re: "It would need recharging every day."

Wouldn't this be a good use of wireless charging? Its unlikely Apple will put a dock connector in the thing, even the new smaller dock connector is pretty big compared to a watch. Take it off at night and set it on a charging pad next to your bed.

I wouldn't think you want a watch that needed charging EVERY day though, because who wants to take a charging mat with them when they travel. So a week's battery life would be a good compromise, any longer and you'd need a find a way to charge it (is it possible to do so through a headphone jack?)

I don't think a week's battery life is a problem. The screen needn't be on all the time, it could come on with a touch or maybe by waving your arm in a particular way (hopefully not a way that makes one look too silly) Ditto for the CPU, it would be idle 99.9% of the time, since it isn't exactly going to be calculating pi when the screen is off.

One of the big consumers of battery in phones is the cellular and wifi modems. This would have neither, and use only Bluetooth or some similar short range technology to talk to your other device, so it would also be idle most of the time.

Even assuming you call iTunes a monopoly, it was a pretty benign monopoly since Apple never gouged the customers. In fact, Apple wanted to keep the uniform 99 cent pricing and was only pushed to the $1.29 pricing by the record labels, who found they weren't making as much money.

Surprise surprise, when people are given the option to buy a single song for 99 cents or even $1.29 they'd rather buy the one or two songs they actually WANT rather than buying the whole album that includes all the filler most people don't want.

The labels kind of knew that already, which is why back in the dark days when CDs cost $15 they sold "CD singles" for $5 to $7! I can only imagine Steve Jobs was able to talk them into signing up with iTunes because they figured the business would never go anywhere. Probably the same reason the publishers originally signed up with Amazon.

Thefts in London vs. NYC

Since people always complain about how Apple screws them on the exchange rate, maybe they're a better theft target because they're worth more in London?

Maybe the New Yorkers are more willing to fight back if someone tries to take their phone without displaying a gun?

Maybe the cops in London actually try to solve crimes like this, while in the US if you report your phone stolen they take down your name and tell you they'll look into it but do nothing, so people feel it is futile to even report it?