Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 26th Apr 2010 23:11 UTC, submitted by UglyKidBill
Well, this is unexpected. The iPhone 4G saga just got a whole lot crazier - dare I say it, a whole lot more ridiculous. Have you ever reported anything like a phone or something similarly small stolen to the police? What was their reaction? Did you ever get the device back? Did they send an army of officers to get your device back? No? Odd. They raided Jason Chen's house, and took four computers and two servers. Update: And thus our true colours reveal. "The raid that San Mateo area cops conducted last week on the house of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen came at the behest of a special multi-agency task force that was commissioned to work with the computer industry to tackle high-tech crimes. And Apple Inc. sits on the task force's steering committee." Update II: According to TechCrunch, the investigation has been put on hold while the DA ponders Gizmodo's shield defence. Update III: Some legal insight from a constitutional law and first amendment expert and a law professor. The gist? The DA has said no one has been charged with anything here, making this just an investigation - however, this makes the search and seizing of material worse. "If the police are literally just gathering information, with no suspect targeted yet, then a subpoena against a journalist would have probably been smarter than a search warranted that resulted in the front door of Chen's home being bashed in."
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RE[2]: A crime is a crime
by targetnovember on Tue 27th Apr 2010 12:14
in reply to "RE: A crime is a crime"
Member since:2010-04-27
You can argue sometimes corporations should be more important. Assuming a crime has been committed, then if the DA doesn't do anything, the area becomes less valuable as a place for companies to do business. You lose your one phone, but thousands lose income as businesses decide to move projects away or not start new business in the area due to their property not being protected. Why is your phone more important than thousands of families survival???
How is Apple above the law?? That would imply Apple committed a crime and were not prosecuted. Are you arguing that Apple directly told the DA what to do, and that Apple IS the government? Isn't it more likely that politically, there is pressure to keep the area friendly to high tech R&D? Isn't this the same area that has Intel, Google, and other major tech companies?
RE[3]: A crime is a crime
by Zifre on Tue 27th Apr 2010 21:52
in reply to "RE[2]: A crime is a crime"
Member since:2009-10-04
You can argue sometimes corporations should be more important. Assuming a crime has been committed, then if the DA doesn't do anything, the area becomes less valuable as a place for companies to do business. You lose your one phone, but thousands lose income as businesses decide to move projects away or not start new business in the area due to their property not being protected. Why is your phone more important than thousands of families survival???
I understand your point, but I don't think your argument is true at all. Supposedly, Apple lost this phone. Someone picked it up. That would happen anywhere in the world. If someone had broken into Apple's buildings and stolen the phone, than this would be an entirely different matter.
Basically, it is obvious that the police should have been involved in this. But stealing computers just to "keep the area friendly to high tech R&D" is wrong, unless you can come up with a good reason as to why the police felt like they had to do that.
RE[2]: A crime is a crime
by fanboi_fanboi on Tue 27th Apr 2010 14:01
in reply to "RE: A crime is a crime"
Member since:2010-04-21
RE[3]: A crime is a crime
by Morgan on Tue 27th Apr 2010 18:25
in reply to "RE[2]: A crime is a crime"
Member since:2005-06-29
I don't think Zifre was saying Apple broke the law, rather that they have the power to use law enforcement for their own agendas. They in effect have created an upper class for themselves that can push law enforcement to do things for them that would not be done for the average citizen.
That position can easily be considered "above the law".
RE[3]: A crime is a crime
by Zifre on Tue 27th Apr 2010 21:41
in reply to "RE[2]: A crime is a crime"
Member since:2009-10-04
In this scenario, can you please explain again how Apple broke the law?
Apple didn't break the law. In fact, I think they are the most innocent. What Gizmodo did was not right, but what the police did was much worse.
Apple simply used its money and power to make the police do what they wanted. This is completely understandable (although this just decreases my already near 0 probability of buying Apple products). Apple is a corporation, and therefore, evil. The police are really at fault here, because they are supposed to do the right thing.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/22/13 22:23 UTC
"Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. Weâll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there. The funny thing about game consoles is that itâs usually the lowest common denominator that determines the bulk of the experience across all platforms. On the plus side, the Xbox One should enjoy better power/thermal characteristics compared to the PlayStation 4. Even compared to the Xbox 360 we should see improvement in many use cases thanks to modern power management techniques." AnandTech does its usual in-depth thing.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/22/13 13:38 UTC
"The Verge has learned that HTC's Chief Product Officer, Kouji Kodera, left the company last week. Kodera was responsible for HTC's overall product strategy, which makes the departure especially notable on the heels of the global launch of the make-or-break One. It's not just Kodera. In the past three-odd months, HTC has lost a number of employees in rapid succession." I really hope HTC pulls it together.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/22/13 13:30 UTC, submitted by JRepin
"It is with huge pleasure that the Debian GNU/Hurd team announces the release of Debian GNU/Hurd 2013. This is a snapshot of Debian 'sid' at the time of the Debian 'wheezy' release (May 2013), so it is mostly based on the same sources. It is not an official Debian release, but it is an official Debian GNU/Hurd port release." Important note: 75% of Debian packages are supported bu Debian GNU/Hurd. Impressive.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 22:06 UTC
"The first killer app was VisiCalc. This early spreadsheet turned the Apple II from a hobbyist toy to a business computer. VisiCalc came with room for improvement, though. In addition, a new architecture and operating system, the Intel-based IBM PC and MS-DOS, also needed a spreadsheet to be taken seriously. That spreadsheet, released in early 1983, would be Lotus 1-2-3, and it would change the world. It became the PC's killer app, and the world would never be the same. On May 14, IBM quietly announced the end of the road for 1-2-3, along with Lotus Organizer and the Lotus SmartSuite office suite. Lotus 1-2-3's day is done." Impressive 30 year run.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:45 UTC
"There's a disconnect between how Apple CEO Tim Cook sees his company's tax strategies and how some members of the US Senate view it. That became clearer than ever today after Cook and two other Apple executives testified before Congress, explaining why they're holding most of their international income in Irish subsidiaries like Apple Operations International, which declare no tax residency anywhere in the world. AOI hasn't filed a tax return anywhere in the world for the last five years, yet it earned $30 billion in income from 2009 to 2012, according to a Senate report released yesterday." Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's just. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and many more - these companies might not be breaking any laws, but it's obvious to anyone that what they are doing is scummy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 15:53 UTC
The new WebKit Opera for Android has been released. "Opera 14 for Android is built on top of Chromium 26, with a total overhaul of the UI in native code, making it fit well with the latest Android design guidelines. Go get the build from Google Play or point your browser to m.opera.com, and give it a spin!"
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 22:43 UTC
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 21:50 UTC
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."More News »
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Member since:
2009-10-04
Actually it is discretionary. If someone stole my hypothetical phone that I built and programmed and blogged about it, the police would not go and break down their door. Only when you have a multi-billion dollar company will they do that.
Don't you think that individuals should be more important than corporations in the law?
Yes, but apparently Apple is.