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Patents

Apple's New Patent Weapon — Location Services 323

DaveyJJ writes "Once again, it seems Apple is about to take intellectual property claims to a new level. Apple has been reissued a patent they acquired from Xerox that pretty much wraps up what we know as 'location services' as their own. In the overview, the patent says the system involved will display information specific to the location the device is in. The language used in the patent is broad and powerful. I guess now we wait and see whom Apple will use this against?"

Comment Re:Apple's Future (Score 4, Informative) 263

OpenSource for other projects, but not in the development of any of their products. Not if they could help it anyway.

Let's see...
- Darwin Streaming Server
- mDNSResponder
- ALAC
- Calendar and Contacts Server
- libdispatch / Grand Central Dispatch
- etc.

http://www.macosforge.org/ is where the more generally useful items outside of OSX wind up. FreeBSD picked up the libdispatch items and ran with it.

Comment So now that Apple's doing it, sandboxing is evil? (Score 4, Insightful) 584

Sandboxing applications is a common security model on Unix systems, so why is this a bad thing on desktop apps as well? The App Store apps already had restrictions on where you could put your executable. This just codifies other accesses into a model where the developer sets up the privileges the app requires instead of leaving it at the free-for-all it is now.

Comment Re:Siri was first??? (Score 1) 800

Google has been collecting this data for at least a year (probably longer), and also has voicemail transcription data as well, so accuracy is not an issue.

I guess you've had different Google voicemail messages than I've had. Certain spots they're dead on, but all too often they're simply hilarious. Accuracy isn't a word I would tend to associate with their transcription.

Comment Re:Strangely inspirational (Score 4, Insightful) 373

Alas, it's also suitable to modify his moral code when it's convenient.

Big Brother has no right to know where I travel, or where you travel, or where anyone travels. If they arbitrarily demand a name, give a name that does not belong to any person you know of. If they will check my ID before I board the bus or train, then let's look for another way for me to travel. (In the US I never use long-distance trains because of their ID policy.)

And yet he's fine with planes...

Comment Re:Which is what, exactly? (Score 1) 2247

I'd be surprised if North Dakota doesn't take in more federal funds than it pays out. California, I'd be surprised if it didn't pay out more than it took in. As such, odds are, the better statement would be: why should California pay for tornado warnings for North Dakota?

Seriously, however, this is a single nation. The larger, richer states help buoy up the smaller ones, which have their own contributions back, as those smaller ones also tend to be where the food is. Putting up fences between groups that are supposed to be on the same overall team is just continuing the crap Congress is doing.

Comment Re:Another holiday: (Score 1) 333

So suggest it to the state of New York and/or New Jersey, as Mr. Ritchie was born and died there, respectively. NJ may be more amenable to it as Bell Labs was there as well, where much of his work was done. This sort of '____ Day' isn't unusual since it costs the state nothing more than printing a proclamation and it lets them toot their horn for doing nothing more than being where the person so honored lived/died.

Comment Re:iPhone ONLY. (Score 1) 162

I might understand it if G+ on the web had any use for sms or telephony... but it doesn't. It'd be a pretty easy check to not enable certain functionality and then it's no diff from the website. And if they're doing an iPod/iPad version anyway, they won't have those features available either.

Comment Re:iPhone-only (Score 1) 162

Because the Google dev decided that they absolutely needed sms and telephony, and the app shouldn't work if those two items weren't there. At least they specified such in the proper way, so it'll at least tell you at install-time that you're SOL instead of bombing out randomly.

Comment Re:iPhone ONLY. (Score 1) 162

Checking the app's plist, it's iPhone only because Google's developer on it decided that it would require the following:
- gps (includes GSM/CDMA iPads)
- location-services (all devices since wifi can give you some form of a fix)
- sms (iPhone)
- telephony (iPhone)
- wifi (all devices)

As the only items which match all of it are iPhones, that's all it'll install on. Now why they decided it required telephone and sms, and didn't just gracefully downgrade when they're lacking, I have no idea. It's kind of sloppy.

Comment Re:It's not rocket science. (Score 1) 182

Turn register globals off in PHP. Use safe mode.

Yes on the first, be aware on the second. It's been deprecated, as noted at http://php.net/manual/en/features.safe-mode.php Safe mode is really a band-aid on an open wound. mod_security, suhosin, proper file ACLs, etc. are all likely better options for dealing with the sorts of things safe_mode buys you, and all but suhosin are applicable to anything that isn't PHP.

Aside from that, a good list. The one thing that can't be said enough: NEVER TRUST CLIENT INPUT. VERIFY, VERIFY, VERIFY.

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