Linked by Eugenia Loli on Tue 28th Jul 2009 06:13 UTC
The news just broke that Apple has rejected the official upcoming Google Voice application, and stopped distributing the third party "GV" application, an app that was previously authorized. Read on for a quick commentary, from the point of view of not an Apple or Google fangirl, but from someone who genuinely appreciates VoIP SIP (even if Google Voice itself is not VoIP, read on). For those who have read my blog over the years, would probably remember my VoIP-related rants since 2005. UPDATE: A more direct, more personal, reply from me to Apple and AT&T.
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RE: All these politics with the goal of vendor lock-in ..
by Laurence on Tue 28th Jul 2009 09:19
in reply to "All these politics with the goal of vendor lock-in .."
Member since:2007-03-26
.. have to die! A computer or a cell phone should just run all software the customer desires and every widely used service should provide interoperability. We still live in the dark ages of computing. No doubt about that. We need more standards and especially more customer/consumer power.
The thing is: if you want an "iPhone-like" device that supports background processes and runs official Google apps, then get an Android handset. Simple.
But agreed with your point. The ironic thing is, Microsoft Windows Mobile is currently the most open* smart phone OS in common use**. It's just a pity that WM has one of worst smart phone UI (obviously this last bit is personal opinion)
* That's "open" as in free of vendor lock ins rather than "open" as in open source.
** by "common use", I mean available in your average high street phone stores - which OpenMoko wasn't.
Edited 2009-07-28 09:20 UTC
RE[2]: All these politics with the goal of vendor lock-in ..
by spiderman on Tue 28th Jul 2009 12:25
in reply to "RE: All these politics with the goal of vendor lock-in .."
Member since:2008-10-23
RE[2]: All these politics with the goal of vendor lock-in ..
by modmans2ndcoming on Wed 29th Jul 2009 12:56
in reply to "RE: All these politics with the goal of vendor lock-in .."
Member since:2005-11-09
RE: All these politics with the goal of vendor lock-in
by middleware on Tue 28th Jul 2009 10:26
in reply to "All these politics with the goal of vendor lock-in .."
Member since:2006-05-11
The reason why I have much less interesting or passion in smart phone application development (or hacking) than I have in personal computer OS is there are much more constraints in the former. Smart phones don't have free development tool set, comparing to JDK, GCC, make, Xcode. Smart phones' function exposure to its vendor and to ISVs are too asymmetric (Android still discourage the use of native API).
This situation is not made by one company but by all the vendors in the market. Apple is a smart company in it is always just a bit more close than the average. It is the overall atmosphere make Apple willing and dare to do so. If S60 had not relied on Visual Studio but GCC, or Android exposes full-feature C APIs, then Apple just would not have dared to make its iPhone as close as it is, just like Apple never dare to impose any restriction on application development and deployment on OS X.
RE[2]: All these politics with the goal of vendor lock-in
by spiderman on Tue 28th Jul 2009 12:26
in reply to "RE: All these politics with the goal of vendor lock-in "
Member since:2008-10-23
RE[2]: All these politics with the goal of vendor lock-in
by chrish on Tue 28th Jul 2009 12:28
in reply to "RE: All these politics with the goal of vendor lock-in "
Member since:2005-07-14
RE[2]: All these politics with the goal - Nokia
by jabbotts on Tue 28th Jul 2009 12:50
in reply to "RE: All these politics with the goal of vendor lock-in "
Member since:2007-09-06
You might like the Nokia tablets. Not fully a smartphone (lacks the cell radio) but the platform is a Debian fork which is very open to third party hacking. The next version of Maemo is rumoured to be fully open also so even the last holdouts, NIC binary blob etc, should be open source.
Mind you, the device runs Debian, Ubuntu or Android with a little effort also.
(hm.. Skype is great but I could due with Maemo Skype supporting the webcam. I'll have to look at Google Chat again as it's the Nokia recommended app.)
RE[2]: All these politics with the goal of vendor lock-in
by smeat on Tue 28th Jul 2009 14:46
in reply to "RE: All these politics with the goal of vendor lock-in "
Member since:2006-07-27
Android does expose C and C++ APIs, please keep up on the topics you are trying to sound like an expert on.
http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/1.5_r1/index.html
RE[2]: All these politics with the goal of vendor lock-in
by modmans2ndcoming on Wed 29th Jul 2009 12:57
in reply to "RE: All these politics with the goal of vendor lock-in "
Member since:2005-11-09
RE: All these politics with the goal of vendor lock-in ..
by Adurbe on Tue 28th Jul 2009 12:41
in reply to "All these politics with the goal of vendor lock-in .."
Member since:2005-07-06
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:33 UTC
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
Linked by Anonymous on 06/18/13 22:26 UTC
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:25 UTC
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:45 UTC
"I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:32 UTC, submitted by poundsmack
A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)".
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:58 UTC
"The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:52 UTC
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 21:03 UTC
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 20:46 UTC
"And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 17:32 UTC
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.More News »
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Member since:
2006-01-04
.. have to die! A computer or a cell phone should just run all software the customer desires and every widely used service should provide interoperability.
We still live in the dark ages of computing. No doubt about that. We need more standards and especially more customer/consumer power.