Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 20th Oct 2010 19:02 UTC
So, Apple held its usual autumn press get-together just now, and after a few rather uninspiring ones (to me, at least), they finally managed to blow me away, with the new MacBook Air (especially the 11.6" variant). They also gave a sneak peek at Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, which has... An App Store. An App Store Apple is going to open on Snow Leopard within 90 days.
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Member since:2010-05-19
I'd say we should always keep access to the machine at the lowest level, but let those who want a black box ignore what's inside of it.
Hmm.
On my way into deep WI to help my uncle move(why else would I be in WI??), I saw many people on the side of the road with basic flat tires, either waiting in their cars texting/reading/on the phone, or just staring at the flat tire, scratching their head.
That implies to me that they didn't know that step 1 is jack the car up until there's no pressure on the rim...
I want an automagical car, too.
It's not a reality, and I don't think it ever will be.
Hiding the internals doesn't eliminate bugs. It makes Windows.
Also, OS X has inherited BSD's stability, but not its security, and years of marketing have people who love their magical black box unprepared for the viruses that will be coming soon.
I don't see why it has to be one-or-the-other. Ubuntu is Doing It Wrong, but the initial stated goal was nice. I used it for a year until Mark started to do his best to be second-class Steve Jobs.
Member since:2010-05-19
Ugh.
I confused myself and answered somthing you didn't say, but rather what someone said to me afk the other day, in the conclusion.
I think that while for the most part your car should Just Work, everyone should understand how it works on a basic level.
I've met people that didn't know you have to change the oil, etc.
Imagine a world where everyone gets charged for various services that were never done/don't exist at the mechanic, but they don't care, because they don't know.
That's the world of proprietary software as I see it.
What's the benefit? Some of it is more featureful currently? I just don't see the advantage of a few features being great enough to be told what to do.
Every time I use Flash or rar(the only proprietary programs I have installed) I sweat a little...
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:
2010-03-08
Free operating systems give a much bigger opportunity for education, as well.
These are things I value, and I wish more people did, as well. It just seems insane to me to put something so amazingly powerful as a computer in front of you, and never bother to understand it.
Well, half of me agrees and half of me disagrees...
As an OS developer, I'm extremely sensitive to the argument that computer are wonderfully hackable machine and that it's sad to imagine that one day we could, like with cars, become slaves of the vendor as far as their internals are concerned.
But as a computer user, including when writing and testing code... I just want the machine to work like a perfect black box ! I don't care how it works, as long as it works perfectly.
I'd say we should always keep access to the machine at the lowest level, but let those who want a black box ignore what's inside of it.