The fake chips most certainly do represent themselves as FTDI chips, by using their FTDI's USB vendor ID.

It is quite possible for them to use the same hardware interface with a different vendor ID, but then they couldn't use FTDI's driver for free.

In fact, the whole reason FTDI makes the ID a writeable setting is so that other companies can use (genuine) FTDI chips in their products, but use their own vendor ID. Usually they'll use FTDI's driver too, but when it is plugged in, Windows will identify the device as "Company XYZ's Device" instead of something generic like "USB to Serial Converter".

If the cloners can get Microsoft to certify a new driver for FTDI's chips, then FTDI has bigger problems than they realized.

End users don't buy anything that is FTDI branded.

They buy USB devices that happen to have FTDI chips in them (or counterfeit FTDI chips, in some cases).

This ultimately hits device manufacturers and electronics distributors. The shady ones deserve to be hit, whereas others who have been duped are now going to be more careful. The good thing is that they now have a foolproof test to tell if their components are genuine.

It could be that iText is just what he needs though. iTextSharp is the C# port of the original iText Java library. At times, it is easier to find code examples for iText than iTextSharp. Since the iTextSharp folks did their best to use C# conventions, the Java call names aren't always the same as the C# ones.

Diversity does not mean tolerating bigotry directed at minorities. It's crazy that you talk about tolerating disagreement when Eich is the one who donated money to criminalize what he disagrees with.

Actually, most countries do Day-Month-Year (not as good as YYYY-MM-DD, but an improvement nonetheless), and most countries do use the metric system. Also, A4 paper makes way more sense than US Letter.

It seems that one country in particular is having a problem in fixing its earlier mistakes.

The bug was found due to observed behavior, not due to a code review.

Client side can be made a bit less painful with Xamarin. You can use one language (C#) for all platforms, and share a fair bit of code between platforms.

Of course you still need separate code to give a native UI on each platform, and different packaging to get the application out there.

Gone are the days of being able to target Windows to get over 90% of the client side market. There is real fragmentation, and innovation is happening quickly. There are many benefits to this, but stability in client side frameworks is not one of them.

The aftermath of Vista is precisely when he should have resigned. CEOs of other tech companies have resigned for lesser debacles.

The NSA scandal has been so earth-shattering with regards to raising awareness of government surveillance that concerns over civil liberties now outweigh concerns over protecting the country. The shift is across party lines as well. It's no wonder politicians of either party have been decrying a rising trend of libertarianism. Whether or not it's accurate to classify today's anti-government fears as such, the fact that the U.S. has become the kind of country to seek asylum from is staggeringly insane. The "trust us" defense isn't good enough.

If you mean that their disinterest in HD in 2006 didn't hurt them, I agree with regard to the first few years of the Wii's life, but its lack of power eventually caught up with them when cross-platform developers left the Wii. Today, the Wii U isn't selling because it doesn't have much first-party software available to showcase the system. Miyamoto acknowledged that this is the result of underestimating the scale of labor required for HD development and subsequently having to delay their software releases (another area where it's behind is in providing competitive online services). The rest of the industry went through this transition this seven years ago, and Nintendo was able to ignore it at the time because of the money they were making.

Nintendo dragged its feet in the move to HD and is paying the price. They underestimated the time and money expense, and now their first-party releases are behind. On top of that, there's barely been any marketing for the Wii U, which has a name that implies it's an accessory for the Wii rather than a new console. The console's tablet controller doesn't offer anything that people's existing smartphones and iPads can't do better. It was likely released in reaction to the iPad (Nintendo stated in 2010 that Apple is their biggest threat). With the lack of hardware power and user base, there's nothing with which to court third-party developers, who are focused instead on the more powerful consoles coming out later this year.

Nintendo's stronghold remains handheld gaming. However, even that is under threat from smartphones. On top of what Android already supports, iOS 7 will ship with native physical controller APIs, and Apple is working with hardware manufacturers to release official attachments and wireless controllers. While the 3DS certainly won't disappear, it will be interesting to watch how well it fares among adult gamers when physical controllers become commonplace in the iPhone accessory aisle.

"They don't want the voice of reason spoken, folks, 'cause otherwise we'd be free. Otherwise we wouldn't believe their fucking horseshit lies, nor the fucking propaganda machine, the mainstream media, and buy their horseshit products that we don't fucking need, and become a third world consumer fucking plantation, which is what we're becoming. Fuck them! They're liars and murders. All governments are liars and murderers, and I am now Jesus. Now. And this is my compound."

- Bill Hicks, Live at Laff Stop in Austin

People have invested in iOS and Android apps, leaving little incentive to switch. Additionally, WinRT lacks functionality compared to Win32. Microsoft has become reactive and conservative, following what others do rather than leading. They had the opportunity years ago to shake things up with the Courier tablet, which was focused on content creation. The project was killed because Bill Gates wanted it to be a more traditional device that interfaced with Office.