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Android

RMS: 'Is Android Really Free Software?' 433

Posted by Soulskill from the android-is-no-braveheart dept.
An anonymous reader points out an article by Richard Stallman in The Guardian which questions whether Android should be described as 'free' or 'open.' Quoting: "Google has complied with the requirements of the GNU General Public License for Linux, but the Apache license on the rest of Android does not require source release. Google has said it will never publish the source code of Android 3.0 (aside from Linux), even though executables have been released to the public. Android 3.1 source code is also being withheld. Thus, Android 3, apart from Linux, is non-free software, pure and simple. ... Android is a major step towards an ethical, user-controlled, free-software portable phone, but there is a long way to go. Hackers are working on Replicant, but it's a big job to support a new phone model, and there remains the problem of the firmware. Even though the Android phones of today are considerably less bad than Apple or Windows smartphones, they cannot be said to respect your freedom."
Power

Whither Moore's Law; Introducing Koomey's Law 105

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the more-i-mean-less-power dept.
Joining the ranks of accepted submitters, Beorytis writes "MIT Technology review reports on a recent paper by Stanford professor Dr. Jon Koomey, which claims to show that the energy efficiency of computing doubles every 1.5 years. Note that efficiency is considered in terms of a fixed computing load, a point soon to be lost on the mainstream press. Also interesting is a graph in a related blog post that really highlights the meaning of the 'fixed computing load' assumption by plotting computations per kWh vs. time. An early hobbyist computer, the Altair 8800 sits right near the Cray-1 supercomputer of the same era."
Apple

Mystery of Vanishing iTunes Credit Shows No Sign of Fading 195

Posted by timothy from the sounds-like-the-fraud-department-at-amex dept.
E IS mC(Square) writes "Back on November 28, 2010, somebody started a thread on Apple's support forums about someone spending more than $50 of his iTunes Store credit on iPhone apps. That discussion thread has since swelled to more than 45 pages, with nearly 700 posts. 'Someone — or some group of someones — seems to be able to spend iTunes gift card credit without permission, buying apps that users don't want. And whoever's doing the hacking seems pretty good at it: Hundreds of users have seen their iTunes credit stolen, and the hack shows no signs of slowing, ten months after it was first reported.' Apple has refunded certain accounts, but not in all cases. Apple suggests that the hack stems from weak, easily guessable passwords, and/or phishing attacks where customers are fooled into entering their passwords into hackers' forms."
Mozilla

Mozilla Issues Do-Not-Track Guide For Advertisers 74

Posted by samzenpus from the stop-following-me dept.
angry tapir writes "Mozilla has issued a do not track field guide to encourage advertisers and publishers to implement do-not-track (DNT) functionality. The guide contains tutorials, case studies and sample code to illustrate how companies use the DNT technology. Mozilla aims to inspire developers, publishers and advertisers to adopt DNT and wants to put the control over Internet tracking into the hands of users. The browser maker wants to put a stop to behavioral targeting and pervasive tracking on the Web. The guide can be found here (PDF)."
The Internet

.XXX Domain Registrations Begins 140

Posted by samzenpus from the get-it-while-it's-hot dept.
alphadogg writes "Registrar ICM Registry announced that the .XXX sponsored top-level domain for the adult entertainment industry is open for registration. The domain was approved by the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in June last year, and then finalized in March. The domain is made possible thanks to ICANN's rules for 'sponsored' TLDs, through which domains have been created by interest groups. Other examples include dot-coop, for cooperative organizations, and dot-museum."
Businesses

Groupon Puts IPO On Hold 129

Posted by Soulskill from the holding-out-for-a-better-group-rate dept.
With his first accepted submission, quantr tips news that Groupon's IPO plans, which triggered skepticism about its high valuation and furthered claims of a new dot-com bubble, have been put on hold amid regulatory concerns and worries about "market volatility." According to the WSJ, "When the company filed to go public in early June, it attracted criticism for its high marketing costs and unprofitable business. The company was also asked by the Securities and Exchange Commission to remove an unusual accounting metric, dubbed Adjusted Consolidated Segment Operating Income, which painted a more robust picture of its performance. Last week, the SEC also contacted a Groupon attorney over a different matter, said a person familiar with the situation: a leaked internal memo from Groupon Chief Executive Andrew Mason to his staff, in which he touted the company and blasted its critics. Making public statements about the financial status of a company during an IPO process is prohibited by SEC rules."

Comment Re:Stupid workaround for stupid server code (Score 1) 151

by pslam (#37256650) Attached to: Google and OpenDNS Work On Global Internet Speedup

And here we have the real reason why this is being promoted:

3. And IMO most importantly, this removes the server selection choice from being under the sole control of the CDN provider. If this stuff is logic'd through the main HTTP page of the website, the CDN must expose its server selection strategy to the client, which is likely proprietary business knowledge.

It breaks DNS. It certainly breaks my local DNS installation, for starters. It also means that *everyone* must use this DNS hack because service will be degraded unless you do.

Comment Stupid workaround for stupid server code (Score 1) 151

by pslam (#37256080) Attached to: Google and OpenDNS Work On Global Internet Speedup

Messing with DNS is doing it the Wrong Way. All of these CDN services are based on HTTP. When you're using them, that's an HTTP server you're talking to. It's perfectly capable of geolocating you by IP, and it can either hand you back links to a local CDN, or redirect you to another server.

Why the hell must we mess with DNS to do this? This is a solution which only works if you use Google DNS, OpenDNS, or sometimes if you use your local ISP's DNS. What if you're just running bind for you local net vs the root servers? Bzzt. Doesn't work.

The most insane thing about this is it's Google we're talking about here. They damn well know how to implement this entirely in their servers without resorting to DNS hacks. Why are they promoting this net-neutrality breaking, layering violating botch? We need less people to use this, not more.
The Internet

Google and OpenDNS Work On Global Internet Speedup 151

Posted by samzenpus from the greased-lightning dept.
Many users have written in with news of Google and OpenDNS working together on The Global Internet Speedup Initiative. They've reworked their DNS servers so that they forward the first three octets of your IP address to the target web service. The service then uses your geolocation data to make sure that the resource you’ve requested is delivered by a local cache. From the article: "In the case of Google and other big CDNs, there can be dozens of these local caches all around the world, and using a local cache can improve latency and throughput by a huge margin. If you have a 10 or 20Mbps connection, and yet a download is crawling along at just a few hundred kilobytes, this is generally because you are downloading from an international source (downloading software or drivers from a Taiwanese site is a good example). Using a local cache reduces the strain on international connections, but it also makes better use of national networks which are both lower-latency and higher-capacity."
Security

There's Been a Leak At WikiLeaks 167

Posted by Soulskill from the who-leaks-the-leakers dept.
adeelarshad82 writes "German paper Der Freitag claims it has uncovered a batch of online unredacted diplomatic cables that came from WikiLeaks. Editor Steffen Kraft said he found a 'password protected csv file' that contained a 1.73GB cache of diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks. Its pages contained 'named or otherwise identifiable "informers" and "suspected intelligence agents" from Israel, Jordan, Iran, and Afghanistan.'"
Portables

Acer CEO Declares a Tablets Bubble 692

Posted by timothy from the that-seems-hard-to-believe dept.
retroworks writes "According to a story in Digitimes, Acer chairman JT Wang is predicting the end of 'tablet fever.' 'Commenting on tablet PC's impact on the notebook industry, [Acer chairman JT Wang] pointed out that tablet PC fever is already starting to cool down and consumers are also being attracted by notebooks again with Intel's Ultrabooks and Microsoft's Windows 8 the major attractions.' Back to the old model then... PC and laptop sales, driven by Windows upgrades?"

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