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Safari

Is Safari the New Internet Explorer? 311

Posted by Soulskill from the dem's-fightin'-woids dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Software developer Nolan Lawson says Apple's Safari has taken the place of Microsoft's Internet Explorer as the major browser that lags behind all the others. This comes shortly after the Edge Conference, where major players in web technologies got together to discuss the state of the industry and what's ahead. Lawson says Mozilla, Google, Opera, and Microsoft were all in attendance and willing to talk — but not Apple.

"It's hard to get insight into why Apple is behaving this way. They never send anyone to web conferences, their Surfin' Safari blog is a shadow of its former self, and nobody knows what the next version of Safari will contain until that year's WWDC. In a sense, Apple is like Santa Claus, descending yearly to give us some much-anticipated presents, with no forewarning about which of our wishes he'll grant this year. And frankly, the presents have been getting smaller and smaller lately."

He argues, "At this point, we in the web community need to come to terms with the fact that Safari has become the new IE. Microsoft is repentant these days, Google is pushing the web as far as it can go, and Mozilla is still being Mozilla. Apple is really the one singer in that barbershop quartet hitting all the sour notes, and it's time we start talking about it openly instead of tiptoeing around it like we're going to hurt somebody's feelings."

Comment Re:Really? (Score 1) 37

by AmiMoJo (#50018265) Attached to: European Government Agrees On Net Neutrality Rules, With Exemptions

They mean that the customer pays to have their low latency traffic prioritized. Basically what some business packages already offer.

The datacap thing is more worrying. It is supposed to work like "all streaming music is exempt", not "just our streaming music service is exempt", but that has to be enforced by regulators. It's hard to see how they would exempt all streaming music services anywhere in the world, from a technical point of view. Streaming over HTTP looks a lot like downloading a very large file over HTTP.

Submission + - Data roaming charges to end in the EU

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Mobile phone users in the EU will see an end to roaming charges within two years. From April 2016 charges will be reduced by around 75%, followed by a full ban in June 2017. The rules also enshrine net neutrality, although with some caveats. The president of the ALDE group, Guy Verhofstadt, said the "great roaming rip-off" was to be brought to an end.

Submission + - Popular VPNs Leak Data, Don't Offer Promised Privacy And Anonymity

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: VPN services can be used for circumventing Internet censorship and accessing blocked content, but researchers warn that you shouldn't believe the companies' claims that they offer privacy and anonymity. A group of researchers from the Sapienza University (Rome) and Queen Mary University (London) have recently tested 14 of the most popular commercial VPN services: Hide My Ass, IPVanish, Astrill, ExpressVPN, StrongVPN, PureVPN, TorGuard, AirVPN, PrivateInternetAccess, VyprVPN, Tunnelbear, proXPN, Mullvad, and Hotspot Shield Elite. They found that ten of them leak IP data, and all except one are vulnerable to IPv6 DNS hijacking attacks.

Submission + - Finnish co-inventor of SMS texting dies (bbc.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The BBC News reports that Matti Makkonen, one of the "grand old man of mobile industry" who helped launch the worldwide sensation of texting, has died at the age of 63 after an illness.

Although planning to retire later in 2015 from the board of Finnet Telecoms, Makkonen constantly remained fascinated with communications technologies, from the Nokia 2010 mobile phone to 3G connections.

He lived just enough to witness the last remnants of former finnish mobile industry giant Nokia disappear, as Redmond announced its intent last month to convert all Nokia stores into Microsoft-branded Authorised Reseller and Service Centres, offering Xbox game consoles alongside the Nokia-drived Lumia range of smartphones.

Comment Re:How does that compare to desktops? (Score 1) 195

by AmiMoJo (#50017665) Attached to: Study Suggests That HUD Tech May Actually Reduce Driving Safety

My car has the speedometer right below the windscreen, in the driver's eyeline when looking forwards. It's actually distracting. With the police using dodgy equipment and the proliferation of cameras you become obsessed with making sure I'm never even 1MPH over the limit. That if I see a mobile site in the distance I can slam on the brakes and do a good 15 MPH under the limit, to offset errors form their equipment. They camouflage them so you have to be extra vigilant.

Obsession with speed and limits makes the roads less safe.

Submission + - Software to protect the users identity on the web are vulnerable to leaks in UK

Submitted by jan_jes
jan_jes writes: According to researchers at Queen Mary University of London, Services used by hundreds of thousands of people in the UK to protect their identity on the web are vulnerable to leaks. The study of 14 popular VPN providers found that 11 of them leaked information about the user because of a vulnerability known as ‘IPv6 leakage’. The leakage occurs because network operators are increasingly deploying a new version of the protocol used to run the Internet called IPv6. The study also examined the security of various mobile platforms when using VPNs and found that they were much more secure when using Apple’s iOS, but were still vulnerable to leakage when using Google’s Android. Similarly Russian researchers have exposed the breakthrough U.S. spying program few months back.

Submission + - ITER won't be ready until 2027 (neimagazine.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Started back in 1985, the ITER, (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) project has suffered repeated delays and cost overruns, so much so that the first plasma originally scheduled for 2019 is "clearly not feasible", according to Dr. Bernard Bigot, the newly appointed director general

Part of the reason for the slow progress is down to the way the project is structured. The European Union, as host party, will contribute up to about 50% of the costs and the other parties 10% each. However, technical decisions require consensus and because those relating to the design of components will inevitably impact some parties more than others, it is difficult to reach. In one case discussions dragged on for six years without a definitive answer. Without that decision work did not progress

Dr. Bigot decides that ITER must gear up to take a more decisive role in the project. “What was plaguing the project before is that there was confusion between the best technical solution and sharing of the cost," said Bigot. “Now I want just the best technical decision. The cost will be covered according to the share of the parties, reflecting the spirit of the ITER agreement"

Dr. Bigot's current aim is to accomplish the deuterium-tritium plasma (previously planned for March 2027), to a more realistic date. “We are now considering the best way to move on from the first plasma and rush as much as possible to the DT plasma, which will please the scientific community," Bigot said

ITER intends to step up to the plate whenever some parties face difficulties complying with the schedule for delivery of equipment by putting the interests of the project first, and redistribute tasks. For example, the organization has already taken charge of procurement of some components on behalf of domestic agencies, although they still remain responsible for the costs

Dr. Bigot stresses that the project is too far advanced for design changes, with more than €7 billion of procurement contracts in place and over 1000 companies at work

“You could not just change [the scope] in the middle...you have to go, or stop." He concluded: "The time has come for the ITER Organization to demonstrate it is serious. The biggest risk is that we lose trust of the political leaders and public opinion, then the project would be dead"

Submission + - UK's National Computer Museum Seeks Repairmen for BBC Micros (bbc.com)

Submitted by tresho
tresho writes: 1981-era 8-bit BBC Micro computers and peripherals are displayed in a special interactive exhibit designed to give modern students a taste of programming a vintage machine."We want to find out whether people have got skills out there that can keep the cluster alive as long as we can," said Chris Monk, learning co-ordinator at the organisation.

Owen Grover, a volunteer at the museum who currently helps maintain the cluster of BBC Micro machines, said they held up well despite being more than 30 years old. The BBC Micro was "pretty robust", he said, because it was designed to be used in classrooms. This meant that refurbishing machines for use in the hands-on exhibit was usually fairly straightforward. "The main problem we need to sort out is the power supply," he said. "There are two capacitors that dry out and if we do not replace them they tend to explode and stink the place out. So we change them as a matter of course." General maintenance on the machines includes replacing keys that stick and the occasional component that fails. Thankfully, he said, there were few custom-built components in the machine so getting spares is easy. Harder-to-obtain parts are cannibalised from broken or faulty machines the museum has in its stores.

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