SFW: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2ghcYF_R-0

But that's the point - they're making a point out of the fact that it's unmodified.

If they're willing to modify it, then ok - lets throw out the screen, the battery, and the speakers. And since we're doing that, why don't we modify/remove the chassis - as it's primary design consideration is the parts we're stripping out.

And yes, we can replace the O/S with a modified, stripped down, or completely alternate one....

Every step they take in adapting a phone to better suit the operating environment is a step towards other existing off the shelf solutions.

I'm tempted to agree. I don't really understand the point of this shoehorning - apart from to inspire.

If the article is to be believed, and the phone is completely unmodified, I straight away see a number of issues :

• * The battery will be way outside it's operating norms - likely to alternately produce very little power, and explode due to overheating.
• * The electronics is specifically designed to be small, and consequently more vulnerable to radiation.
• * Half of the mass of the device is unnecessary. For example, there is no point having a touchscreen display if nobody is there to look at it or touch it.
• * The unmodified operating system is completely geared towards having a user interacting with it. There are far more suitable (free) alternatives available off the shelf.

I like the condiment analogy.

I fully accept that he doesn't like the security implications, but that's kind of what I'm getting at - if a device (which for the sake of clarity vsvs another conversation I'm having above, I regard as more of a specialized tool than a 'real' multi-purpose computer) doesn't do what you need/want it to do, then you get rid of it (which I simplified as "do not want". From my point of view, I didn't get why this was a story, however as per the discussion above, if you treat them (iPads) as real viable omni-purpose devices, then I can see why this would be newsworthy.

No need for cynicism - the AC somehow turned into an account (It showed as AC for me too at first).

You're right, the walled garden isn't the thrust of what the politician was saying; I was just replying directly to the comment.

However, I think my point still stands - the politician doesn't like something about a device, but the specific issue he raises is a general concern about data security - not something specific to an iPad. As far as I understand it (not being a regular user of Apple products), if you were to install an IMAP client (Or use a native one?IDK) on an iPad and use that to access your email, then your data is no more or less secure than using a laptop (Linux or not). The abstract (at least - the article itself is badly translated), implies that the politician reject the iPad specifically because he felt it not as secure as an alternative.

As I say, my knowledge of Apple products is limited, and if you were to tell me that an iPad takes unconditional snapshots of it's entire storage (including third party app storage), and backs that up online then I would concede that it is less secure.

(I'll reply to the duplicate here :) )

I guess it depends on which side of the device convergence field you're coming from. I've always regarded tablets as being more in the vein of specialized utility devices (hence the hammer analogy) than computers. I do own a tablet (Nexus7 FWIW), but I regard it (and tablets as a whole in their current incarnation) as more of a toy than a tool.

For pretty much anything more than web browsing (or anything I can't do with my phone), I turn to a 'real' computer. I did own a hybrid laptop (convertible flip screen), but never really found much use for that either (apart from sketching drawings in meetings).

I suspect (hope) that in the long run, the specific foibles of devices will be a moot point anyway, although there's a fair chance that will be derailed if people start throwing their toys out of the pram and breaking HTML5(+) compatibility.

Well, Google Translate didn't do a great job in this instance, so I'll have to take that as an assumption, (unless you read Polish or have a better source and can tell me definitively) .

What I did get from the article is what I assumed to be the principle objection - a quote stating "Admin has access to everything." - which holds true for any organisation which uses email.

A small error, but the original goal was $850,000 - which is slightly important, as it was the required goal to attain matched funding from local government.

The thing is that the even though some regard the walled garden thing to be a problem, it's a problem that most consumers are ok with, or indifferent to.

It is acknowledged that there are many things you can't do with an iPad, but the same is true of a hammer - I can't inflate a baloon with a hammer, but that doesn't stop it from being perfectly good at driving nails.

To me this story is a comparable story to "Polititian retuns government car because he can't change the paint colour."

...but this story to me reads as a "Man does not like thing." fluff piece.

Can anyone enlighten me?

I think it's a mixed bag of things. Unmangled variables would be a great help - could tell you the native language of the developers. Code style can give hints as well - you can compare the style of code with the style of a known sample to give hints. Machine code structure can tell you which compiler was used (which gives you more hints).

If the developers used pure assembler (which people don't any more *laments*), and scrubbed your code properly you could make it much harder to trace (but doing so in itself gives you clues about the creator.

I see your point, but it's a fair assumption it's Windows - Flavours of Windows account for ~80-85% of PC market, with Flavours of Mac accounting for 10-15% (and nothing industrial runs on a mac). Linux could be the end target, but doesn't make a good vector as it's usually hardened. The upshot of which is, that if you want to do any industrial malware - Windows is the target.

...but clearly this isn't possible. Assuming this is software based, they'd have to prevent anyone installing 'unapproved' O/Ss, Also, live boots would be out. Also, all devices without said software would have to be 'dealt with'.

Also - the LogBox linked to in the article appears to be for a ColdFusion logging library - I suspect this is either lazy journalism or politician luditism.

The first link should have been a link to the article. I dropped in the wrong link, and hit 'save' instead of 'preview'. Also, for clarification, "The government" in sentence three should have been "The Japanese government".