27456400
submission
N!NJA writes:
My favourite fact of this past year was the proof that China makes almost nothing out of assembling Apple‘s iPads and iPhones. It’s a favourite because it speaks so directly to one of the great political arguments going on in both the US and the UK. I refer, of course, to this very strange idea that both countries would get (even) richer if only they would do more manufacturing. [...] If you want lots of jobs and lots of high paying jobs then you’re not going to find them in manufacturing. They’re where the money is, in the design, the software and the retailing of the products, not the physical making of them. Manufacturing is just so, you know, 20th century.
24524394
submission
N!NJA writes:
Many have already read on the Internets what Richard Stallman said about Steve Jobs:
"Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died. As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, "I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone." Nobody deserves to have to die — not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs' malign influence on people's computing. Unfortunately, that influence continues despite his absence. We can only hope his successors, as they attempt to carry on his legacy, will be less effective."
Source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/10/steve-jobs-stallman-dissenting-view.html
Eric S Raymond, the author of Cathedral in Bazaar has come out to defend Richard M Stallman:
"But the Mac also set a negative pattern that Jobs was to repeat with greater amplification later in his life. In two respects; first, it was a slick repackaging of design ideas from an engineering tradition that long predated Jobs (in this case, going back to the pioneering Xerox PARC WIMP interfaces of the early 1970s). Which would be fine, except that Jobs created a myth that arrogated that innovation to himself and threw the actual pioneers down the memory hole."
"Second, even while Jobs was posing as a hip liberator from the empire of the beige box, he was in fact creating a hardware and software system so controlling and locked down that the case couldn’t even be opened without a special cracking tool. The myth was freedom, but the reality was Jobs’s way or the highway. Such was Jobs’s genius as a marketer that he was able to spin that contradiction as a kind of artistic integrity, and gain praise for it when he should have been slammed for hypocrisy."
"What’s really troubling is that Jobs made the walled garden seem cool. He created a huge following that is not merely resigned to having their choices limited, but willing to praise the prison bars because they have pretty window treatments."
Source: http://www.muktware.com/news/2623
24319146
submission
N!NJA writes:
Hewlett-Packard has hired Goldman Sachs as an adviser to help defend against potential activist investors or hostile bidders seeking a break-up of the troubled technology giant, people briefed on the matter told DealBook on Wednesday. The hiring of Goldman is not surprising. Analysts and investors have mused for months that H.P. is ripe for an activist investor to arise, demanding even bolder steps to try to bolster shareholder value. Shares of H.P. have fallen more than 44 percent over the last 12 months, closing on Wednesday at $23.19. With the company's stock price hovering near 52-week lows, HP's management and directors have become concerned that agitators may begin amassing sizable holdings, these people said.
On the same topic:
HP Said to Have Been Concerned Over Oracle When Switching CEOs
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-09-29/hp-said-to-have-been-concerned-over-oracle-when-switching-ceos.html
Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) — Hewlett-Packard Co. directors were concerned that plummeting shares would make the company vulnerable to a bid from Oracle Corp. when they replaced Leo Apotheker with Meg Whitman, two people close to the board said. While Oracle has considered informally whether to approach Hewlett-Packard, it's unlikely to make a bid any time soon, three people close to the software company said. After speaking with several financial advisers, Hewlett-Packard has hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to help it prepare for any possible moves by activist investors, one person said.
24318708
submission
N!NJA writes:
The proposal to build Apple's sleek tablet computers in Brazil was first announced in April by President Dilma Rousseff during an official visit to China. Senior officials hailed the deal as a sign of growing economic ties with Asia, and proof that Brazil was moving up the value-added manufacturing chain as its economy grows.
Yet the idea for a "Brazilian iPad" prompted immediate skepticism back home, where factories have struggled for years with high taxes, an overvalued currency and a lack of qualified workers due to poor education and a tight labour market.
The expected start date for production was first set for July, then delayed to November. Now, it is unclear whether the project will ever get off the ground, at least in the form that it was originally envisioned, the officials said on condition of anonymity.
"The talks have been very difficult, and the project for a Brazilian iPad is in doubt," one official said. "(Foxconn) is making crazy demands" for tax breaks and other special treatment, the official added.
23708160
submission
N!NJA writes:
This is an interesting development in technology industry of Brazil. The government is pushing what they call "digital inclusion", which aims to give its citizens easier access to technology. They recently approved a tax break that will make media tablets (iPad and Android only, I believe) 30% cheaper. The problem with this idea is 2 fold: 1) media tablets are more expensive than cheap laptops/netbooks and only the rich Brazilians would be able to afford them. If the majority of the population won't benefit, that isn't real "inclusion". 2) media tablets lack the basic features of actual laptops, so the level of empowerment they provide is comparatively lower. I'm curious to the what fellow Slashdoters think about it.
So here's the scoop:
"Brazil's lower house in a voice vote Tuesday gave approval to a measure offering tax breaks for national production of tablet computers. The bill, which still must gain final approval in the Senate, would offer manufacturers full exemption from the country's PIS and Cofins tax. According to government estimates, the tax breaks could help reduce the final cost to consumers by more than 30%. The measure was introduced by the government as part of a series of incentives to attract foreign tablet manufacturers to the country. In addition to exemption from the PIS and Cofins taxes, the government has also pledged reductions in the IPI industrial products tax and the II import tax. Of a total of 12 million computers produced in Brazil last year, only 100,000 were tablets."
-- Wall Street Journal
20070462
submission
N!NJA writes:
A patent application published on Thursday reveals how far Apple has progressed on melding iOS's multi-touch interface with Mac OS X, and hints that the Mac operating system's multiple-workspace feature, Spaces, may find its way onto the iPad.
Rather than manipulating Spaces using your keyboard or mouse as Mac OS X now requires, however, the filing envisions using multi-touch, multi-finger gestures to summon the Spaces view, move windows from workspace to workspace, and select which one to fill the display.
"Why bother?" you might ask. Well, according to Apple, using a mouse or keyboard to manage Spaces is "cumbersome and inefficient", requiring "selecting an icon or other small graphical user interface object with a cursor," or "remembering unintuitive keyboard shortcuts". Such actions are not only "tedious and create a significant cognitive burden", they also "wast[e] energy" which is "particularly important in battery-operated devices".
18556516
submission
N!NJA writes:
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer took the stage at the Consumer Electronics Show last week amid anticipation from both critics and supporters. The critics were hoping he would go on-stage and deliver the same old, boring discourse on why Microsoft is tops in software. The supporters were hoping that Ballmer would talk about the impact Windows 8 will have, why Windows-based tablets are the future, and how Microsoft will spend the next year overcoming pressures from Google and Apple. Unfortunately for those supporters, Ballmer did little of the sort. Instead, he and his colleagues spent time talking about Xbox, one of Microsoft's strongest achievers in the past year; Windows Phone 7 and how the company will improve the OS in the coming year; and Windows 7. He also mentioned that the next version of Windows will support ARM Holdings architecture. But that was about it.
18127560
submission
N!NJA writes:
Few devices know more personal details about people than the smartphones in their pockets: phone numbers, current location, often the owner's real name — even a unique ID number that can never be changed or turned off. These phones don't keep secrets. They are sharing this personal data widely and regularly, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found. An examination of 101 popular smartphone "apps" — games and other software applications for iPhone and Android phones — showed that 56 transmitted the phone's unique device ID to other companies without users' awareness or consent. Forty-seven apps transmitted the phone's location in some way. Five sent age, gender and other personal details to outsiders. Among the apps tested, the iPhone apps transmitted more data than the apps on phones using Google Inc.'s Android operating system. [...]
"The great thing about mobile is you can't clear a UDID like you can a cookie," says Meghan O'Holleran of Traffic Marketplace, an Internet ad network that is expanding into mobile apps. "That's how we track everything." Ms. O'Holleran says Traffic Marketplace, a unit of Epic Media Group, monitors smartphone users whenever it can. "We watch what apps you download, how frequently you use them, how much time you spend on them, how deep into the app you go," she says. She says the data is aggregated and not linked to an individual. [...]
Some developers feel pressure to release more data about people. Max Binshtok, creator of the DailyHoroscope Android app, says ad-network executives encouraged him to transmit users' locations. Mr. Binshtok says he declined because of privacy concerns. But ads targeted by location bring in two to five times as much money as untargeted ads, Mr. Binshtok says. "We are losing a lot of revenue."
17811082
submission
N!NJA writes:
The movie debuted to Japanese audiences December 1st.
Official site: http://yamato-movie.net/en/
Trailer with English subs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH9XY8Z7I7c&annotation_id=annotation_353743&feature=iv
Making of: http://io9.com/5702635/activate-wave+motion-gun-new-documentary-takes-you-inside-the-live+action-star-blazers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Blazers
Star Blazers is an American animated television series adaptation of the Japanese anime series, Space Battleship Yamato I, II & III. Star Blazers was first broadcast in the United States in 1979. Significantly, it was the first popular English-translated anime that had an over-arching plot and storyline that required the episodes to be shown in order. It dealt with somewhat more mature themes than other productions aimed at the same target audience at the time. As a result, it paved the way for future arc-based, plot-driven anime translations.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ff20101126a1.html
"Space Battleship Yamato" is accordingly one of the biggest domestic releases this year. Quite often, the pressure of pleasing the various constituencies of a project like this, from fans to corporate sponsors, results in an overblown mess. But Yamazaki, working with scriptwriter Shimako Sato (a director in her own right who also happens to be Yamazaki's wife), has made a film that is good, uncomplicated fun for kids, and with plenty of CG spectacle and thrills (if not in the ever-more common 3-D). At the same time, "Space Battleship Yamato" is not only packed with references to the original "Yamato" series, but also contains various thematic elements, from old-fashioned patriotism to contemporary eco-consciousness, that give older fans more to chew on than the usual kiddy popcorn fare.
http://www.scifijapan.com/articles/2010/11/24/space-battleship-yamato-triumph-and-tragedy/
Takashi Yamazaki’s SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO begins on familiar ground for fans a barren Earth surface with planet bombs raining down upon it. Captain Okita, played with the requisite dignity called for in the role by Tsutomu Yamazaki., is locked in a raging battle against the Gamilas that results in the death/disappearance of Mamoru Kodai (Shinichi Tsutsumi). Five years later, the year is 2199 and Earth’s population lives underground, escaping from the radiation released by the deadly planet bombs. Mamoru Kodai’s brother Susumu (Takuya Kimura) has quit the military, leaving his career as a top notch pilot and squadron leader, and becomes a scavenger and junk collector on Earth. When he sees a mysterious capsule fall from space, it leads him on a journey back to the military and eventually the captain’s chair of the mighty Space Battleship Yamato as it leaves Earth in search of the planet Iscandar and its promise of a device that will free the Earth of its deadly radiation and turn the surface habitable again.
12682246
submission
N!NJA writes:
from CNN:
The Microsoft (MSFT) CEO says that Google's (GOOG) mobile OS isn't without a cost in an interview with Jon Fortt.
from me:
too bad he didn't try to sell me on why MS phone was better.
11825782
submission
N!NJA writes:
Warranty firm SquareTrade has just released a research paper analyzing the failure rate for 30,000 laptops comparing brands and hardware categories--and the results might surprise you.
The headline news is that over three years, one out of three laptops will fail, and that Asus and Toshiba laptops have the lowest failure rates, while Acer, Gateway, and HP have higher than average failure rates. Additionally, two-thirds of those problems are hardware malfunctions, while the final third are classified as accidental damage.
11467042
submission
N!NJA writes:
At the Intel Developer Forum, the eponymous chipmaker is showing off Light Peak, its ultra-fast, multi-purpose, optical interconnect. Interestingly, Intel appears to be trying to kill USB 3.0, without actually saying so. There's still no USB 3.0 chipset support from Intel, and not even any published plans.
8883430
submission
N!NJA writes:
Microsoft was aware months ago of a critical security vulnerability well before hackers exploited it to breach Google, Adobe and other large U.S. companies but did not patch the hole until Thursday.
The software giant had intended to release a patch for the flaw in February — more than four months after learning about it — but had to speed up that plan and role it out this week in the wake of news that Google and others had been hacked through the flaw, the world’s largest software maker acknowledged Thursday.
Meron Sellen, a security researcher at BugSec, an Israeli firm, quietly reported the vulnerability to Microsoft in September, according to security firm Kaspersky.
7070758
submission
N!NJA writes:
from ArsTechnica:
[...] the update to the rather ubiquitous browser plugin will finally synchronize the Flash experience on all platforms with the exception of arguably one of the most successful smartphones: Apple's iPhone. [...] The company announced today that RIM is joining the project and will collaborate with Adobe to bring Flash Player 10.1 to its BlackBerry operating system. Adobe said that betas of Flash Player 10.1 will available for Windows Mobile and Palm's webOS later this year, and expects betas for Google Android and SymbianOS to be ready in early 2010. It will be optimized for netbooks and so-called "smartbooks" in addition to smartphone platforms, and will utilize GPU acceleration whenever possible.
-----------------------
from The Register
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/17/flash_mobile_10_point_one_air_2_betas
Today, Adobe made Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2.0 available for beta, but only for use on familiar old PCs, laptops and notebooks running Windows, Linux, or Mac. [...] Tom Barclay, Adobe Flash platform senior product marketing manager, said a lot of the work done tuning the player for mobile will also benefit developers and users of desktops. [...] A subset of Flash is already on mobile devices, but Flash Player 10.1 will bring the full player to Symbian S60, Google Android, Palm Web OS, and Windows Mobile 6.5. Apple's iPhone browser will not be supported, although developers will be able to build content using Creative Suite 5 and post applications to Apple's AppStore for download. [...] In lieu of mobile-operating support today, Barclay instead called out features in the Flash 10.1 and AIR 2.0 beta built for mobile but suited to PCs, notebooks and nethooks. These included H.264 hardware acceleration for video on chipsets that Barclay said is significant for netbooks, because it delivers smooth-quality video on relatively inexpensive machines without soaking up the battery life or CPU.
---------------------
from Adobe
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/fplayer10.1_hardware_acceleration.html
Hardware-accelerated H.264 decoding is supported on some video cards and drivers running on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Linux and Mac OS X hardware-accelerated decoding is not supported in this version. See the Flash Player 10.1 public beta release notes (http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/releasenotes.pdf) for supported hardware and links to download supported drivers.
