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Submission + - Google Sacrificed Innovation to Avoid Pissing Off Steve Jobs

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In addition to affecting one million employees, reports PandoDaily's Mark Ames, Apple and Google's wage-fixing cartel also sacrificed innovation so as not to anger Steve Jobs. "One the most interesting misconceptions I've heard about the 'Techtopus' conspiracy," writes Ames, "is that, while these secret deals to fix recruiting were bad (and illegal), they were also needed to protect innovation by keeping teams together while avoiding spiraling costs." Not so, argues Ames, who describes how Google cancelled plans to have former Apple employee Jean-Marie Hullot run a small engineering center in Paris after Jobs expressed his disapproval. A promise from Google Sr. VP of Knowledge Alan Eustace that "Jean-Marie will not be working on anything to do with cell phone handsets" wasn't good enough for Jobs, who told Eustace, "We’d strongly prefer that you not hire these guys [Hullot and his team]." Breaking the news to Hullot, Eustace wrote, "Steve is opposed to Google hiring these engineers. He didn't say why, and I don't think it is appropriate for me to go back for clarification. I can’t risk our relationship with Apple to make this happen over his objections." In a follow-up e-mail to Jobs, Eustace wrote, "Based on your strong preference that we not hire the ex-Apple engineers, Jean-Marie and I decided not to open a Google Paris engineering center. I appreciate your input into this decision, and your continued support of the Google/Apple partnership." Ames notes, "It's worth taking a moment to reflect, again, on what was happening here: in a field as critical and competitive as smartphones, Google's R&D strategy was being dictated, not by the company's board, or by its shareholders, but by a desire not to anger the CEO of a rival company." Jobs, who reportedly took glee in Google's only-too-eager termination of an employee who crossed his path, was apparently viewed as one not to be trifled with. Asked by lawyers last year to describe Steve Jobs' view on hiring in Silicon Valley, Google co-founder Sergey Brin responded, "I think Mr. Jobs' view was that people shouldn't piss him off. And I think that things that pissed him off were — would be hiring, you know — whatever."

Submission + - Feds want an expanded ability to hack criminal suspects' computers (wsj.com) 1

Submitted by Advocatus Diaboli
Advocatus Diaboli writes: What could go wrong?

"The U.S. Department of Justice is pushing to make it easier for law enforcement to get warrants to hack into the computers of criminal suspects across the country. The move, which would alter federal court rules governing search warrants, comes amid increases in cases related to computer crimes. Investigators say they need more flexibility to get warrants to allow hacking in such cases, especially when multiple computers are involved or the government doesn’t know where the suspect’s computer is physically located."

Submission + - Is There an Elegant Program?

Submitted by lxrslh
lxrslh writes: Since the dawn of computing, we have read about massive failed projects, bugs that are never fixed, security leaks, spaghetti code, and other flaws in the programs we use every day to operate the devices and systems upon which we depend. It would be interesting to read the code of a well-engineered, perfectly coded, intellectually challenging program. I would love to see the code running in handheld GPS units that first find a variable number of satellites and then calculate the latitude, longitude, and elevation of the unit. Do you have an example of a compact and elegant program for which the code is publicly available?

Comment Re: This is very exciting for indie devs (Score 1) 149

by stoborrobots (#46529253) Attached to: Unreal Engine 4 Launching With Full Source Code

I really don't know the indie game industry very well so I don't know what constitutes "mildly successful", but based on the numbers given, the break-even point is $5m-$10m (so that 5% is $250k-$500k)... So if your expected gross income from the game is less than $5 million, then this is a good deal, and if not, it's a bad deal.

Even if your expected gross is $10 million over the life of the game, if that's made up of $2 million a year for 5 years, this might be an attractive option given the following choices:

  • Spend $250,000 now, hope and pray that you make some money, gross $2 million in the first year (so that costed you 12.5%!!!!), then recoup the expense over the next few years, or
  • Spend $20 now, gross $2 million each year, then from that income spend $100,000 each year.

You end up spending more in the second situation, but you spend it after you've earned it, with the risk transferred to the vendor. Not always the right option, but often worth considering even if it's not the chosen path.

Submission + - Engine data reveals that Flight 370 flew on for hours after it "disappeared". (wsj.com)

Submitted by Advocatus Diaboli
Advocatus Diaboli writes: "Aviation investigators and national security officials believe the plane flew for a total of five hours based on data automatically downloaded and sent to the ground from the Boeing Co. 777's engines as part of a routine maintenance and monitoring program."

"As part of its maintenance agreements, Malaysia Airlines transmits its engine data live to Rolls-Royce for analysis. The system compiles data from inside the 777's two Trent 800 engines and transmits snapshots of performance, as well as the altitude and speed of the jet. Those snippets are compiled and transmitted in 30-minute increments, said one person familiar with the system."

Submission + - Office 365 "On Demand" gone? (office.com) 2

Submitted by jbarr
jbarr writes: Back in December, I paid for an Office 365 Home Premium subscription. One of the selling features (which is still being advertised as a feature) is the Office On Demand feature. You open a Web browser, login to your Office 365 account, and click on an "On Demand application (like Word, Excel, Access, outlook, etc.) and it launches a "streamed" instance of the application. It's like a Remote Desktop or Citrix session that provides access to a full version of each Office application from any Internet-connected Windows 7 and Windows 8.x box.

On Demand is not to be confused with their "Office Online" feature which are Web Apps of most Office applications (except Access and Publisher.) These versions are limited in function, whereas the On Demand versions were full, streamed instances of the application.

About a week or so ago, I signed in, and the ability to launch the On Demand applications was gone, effectively locking me out of an important feature that I paid for. I did a Google Search, and found several threads discussing this, yet no one seems to know what's going on. There is one kind soul who presented a workaround to launch Word and Excel On Demand which is great (thank you!) but to no fault of his, it doesn't address launching other On Demand applications.

I paid-for a feature that is still advertised, and it is now not available without notice. And there is no explanation. If servers are down, fine. Post a message stating it. If you are adding or changing features, then post a page stating it. But as it stands, all On Demand functionality has simply been stripped out with no explanation rendering my Access databases useless. Yes, I can locally install Access 2013 from my Office 365 Home Premium subscription, but that misses the point that a paid-for feature has been removed without explanation or compensation.

Submission + - Facebook In Talks To Acquire Drone Maker Titan Aerospace (suasnews.com) 1

Submitted by garymortimer
garymortimer writes: Facebook, one of the primary backers of the Internet.org initiative, which aims to bring affordable Internet access to the 5 billion people in the world who still lack connectivity, is in talks with a company that could help further that agenda. TechCrunch is hearing that Facebook is buying Titan Aerospace, makers of near-orbital, solar-powered drones which can fly for five years without needing to land. According to a source with access to information about the deal, the price for this acquisition is $60 million

Comment Re:OTR (Score 4, Insightful) 109

by stoborrobots (#46364275) Attached to: Tor Is Building an Anonymous Instant Messenger

That hides the content of your communication, but it still shows that you're communicating, and with whom. So the "metadata" that the NSA and/or FB are interested in is still available...

Ostensibly using TOR hides the fact that you're the one communicating, and who you're communicating with... (Whether that's still true in practice is another question...)

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