Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 23rd Feb 2011 23:56 UTC, submitted by gogothebee
Ah, something Microsoft really couldn't use right now: problems with the very first update to its Windows Phone 7 operating system. In this very competitive marketplace, in which WP7 is a late newcomer, it can't use major problems like this. The thing is though - how big of a problem is this, really? And, is it even Microsoft's fault at all?
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Member since:2006-03-12
were not hardware bricked. They had a soft brick, which only requires you to hit the button combination which reflashes the firmware onto the device.
No.
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/02/everything-that-can-g...
"For lucky individuals, the process merely hangs on step seven (out of ten); rebooting the phone resurrects it, albeit without the upgrade. For a minority of unlucky users, the process fails at step six, and corrupts the phone's firmware. What's worse is that for some of them it appears to be bricking the phone completely, rendering it useless."
Next paragraph goes into detail about the button combination, and how it sometimes doesn't work.
I remember Eugenia's recent article about older iOS products being "bricks" because two features have ceased to work after an update. Meanwhile the first WP7 update has made actual, real, for serious bricks, and that word is conspicuously absent. To be fair, the iOS issue is systemic, and this is relatively isolated. But to be actually really fair, these are actually really bricks, and the iOS devices actually really aren't. Just sayin'.
Member since:2005-11-29
Yes. Don't take what Ars reports as gospel. Along with their sensational headlines, that part is plain wrong. You need not look further than the XDA forums where Omnia7 users have reported success in reflashing their phones to a restored firmware.
The "brick" does not prevent any phone from entering download mode and having a new firmware reflashed with Samsung's tool.
There has been no confirmed case of a completely irreversibly bricked phone. At all. Sensationalism at it's finest.
Member since:2005-07-12
From Ars' coverage:
Those unfortunates with apparent firmware corruption can try forcing the phone into download mode (turn off the handset, then turn it on while holding the camera button and the volume down button) or firmware reset mode (turn off the handset, then turn it on while holding the camera button and volume up button; then choose the "format" option) or perhaps even a different download mode (turn on while holding camera, volume up and volume down). If this is successful, it should allow the handset to recover its original firmware and resume operation. But not everyone can get this to work, indicating that the devices are truly bricked, with the only option being to return them to the network operator and have them replaced under warranty.
(emphasis added)
Perhaps the article should have mentioned this, but yes, the worst case did happen for some people.
Member since:2009-01-08
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 13:17 UTC
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 12:06 UTC
"According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow.More News »
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Member since:
2005-11-29
were not hardware bricked. They had a soft brick, which only requires you to hit the button combination which reflashes the firmware onto the device.
A more severe form of a brick is where the ROM which stores the recovery image and the bootloader become corrupted, from which there is no return without JTAG.
Basically you call Windows Phone Support, they tell you to hold down three buttons, and you get a factory reset phone.
You'd swear the sky was falling the way some of these articles were written.