Comment Future use: (Score 1) 398
Used to stop speeding driver in 10, 9, 8,...
Comment Re:P0WN3D! (Score 1) 349
Apple and Microsoft cross-licensed many years ago.
The current problems are from a predominately computer industry company moving into the telecoms sector as a predominately telecoms sector company moves into the computer industry. The 2 different ways of doing business, cross-licensing versus common standards over expensive infrastructure, are clashing spectacularly.
Which one will win? I don't know but I hope software patents die.
Comment Re:Uh... (Score 1) 396
This is a silly argument: PCs have programs, they should be sold in ProgStores.
Apple has always talked about Applications: even the file type was APPL.
Partly I'm sure this was an in-joke (is APPL short for APPLication or APPLe?) but it's in their programming and UI design books, the file system, and the Mac API.
Meanwhile PCs have the "Programs" menu and the "Program Files" directory. API-wise there is no program concept that I know of, only windows. So an App store for a PC or Windows tablet would be silly and confusing.
Google can call the android executables what it likes but if it uses Programs or Applications then it's copying Microsoft or Apple respectively. Android Units maybe?
Comment Re:That's right, Apple has a monopoly on smart (Score 1) 323
Nah, Samsung ripped it off, even where they aren't constrained they did the same thing.
Green phone icons when they had literally millions of colours available?
And using icons in the exact the same way as Apple.
Even Microsoft tried to be different with Metro and they've made BILLIONS from copying everything from everybody.
Apple is using design patents for a crime called "passing off" here: essentially Samsung are pretending to be Apple to confuse customers.
Police Encrypt Radios To Tune Out Public 242
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Police departments around the country are moving to shield their radio communications from the public as cheap, user-friendly technology has made it easy for anyone to use handheld devices to keep tabs on officers responding to crimes and although law enforcement officials say they want to keep criminals from using officers' internal chatter to evade them, journalists and neighborhood watchdogs say open communications ensures that the public receives information as quickly as possible that can be vital to their safety. 'Whereas listeners used to be tied to stationary scanners, new technology has allowed people — and especially criminals — to listen to police communications on a smartphone from anywhere,' says DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier who says that a group of burglars who police believe were following radio communications on their smartphones pulled off more than a dozen crimes before ultimately being arrested. But encryption also makes it harder for neighboring jurisdictions to communicate in times of emergency. 'The 9/11 commission concluded America's number one vulnerability during the attacks was the lack of interoperability communications,' writes Vernon Herron, 'I spoke to several first responders who were concerned that their efforts to respond and assist at the Pentagon after the attacks were hampered by the lack of interoperability with neighboring jurisdictions.'"
China Building Gigantic Structures In the Desert 412
A user writes "New photos have appeared in Google Maps showing unidentified titanic structures in the middle of the Chinese desert. The first one is an intricate network of what appears to be huge metallic stripes. It's located in Dunhuang, Jiuquan, Gansu, north of the Shule River, which crosses the Tibetan Plateau to the west into the Kumtag Desert. It covers an area approximately one mile long by more than 3,000 feet wide. The tracks are perfectly executed, and they seem to be designed to be seen from orbit."
French Power Company Fined For Hacking Greenpeace 196
judgecorp writes "Electricite de France (EDF) which uses nuclear reactors to generate the majority of France's electricity, has been found guilty of hacking into Greenpeace computers in 2006. EDF has been fined fined €1.5 million and ordered to pay Greenpeace a further half a million euros, for what the judge described as an act of 'industrial scale espionage.'"
Comment Re:Bah! (Score 2) 695
I am not a researcher but I work with some.
The ice cores from Antarctica the researchers collected are complete and continuous and extend as far back in the past as it was possible for the researchers to go.
The cores show that the climate change is unprecedented.
More information: http://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/Services/Laboratories-Facilities/New-Zealand-Ice-Core-Research-Facility
Ask Slashdot: Unity/Gnome 3/Win8/iOS — Do We Really Hate All New GUIs? 1040
Brad1138 writes "You see complaints about the 'next gen' GUI's all over the place, but do we really all hate them? Personally, I don't like them — I tried very hard to like Unity in Ubuntu 11.04/11.10 before giving up and switching to Mint (I am very happy there currently). But is it the vocal minority doing all the complaining, or is it the majority? Are we just too set in our ways?"
Consumer Tech: an IT Nightmare 533
snydeq writes "Advice Line's Bob Lewis discusses the difficulties IT faces in embracing the kinds of consumer technologies business users are demanding they support. 'Let's assume the consumerization of IT is the big trend many think it is. But using consumer tech in a business environment is a very different matter from being satisfied with consumer tech in a business environment. One of IT's legitimate gripes is that we're often asked to turn consumer-grade technology into business-grade technology with a wave of our magic wands. On top of the intrinsic technical challenges, there's this: IT doesn't have anything that even resembles a methodology for performing the business analysis we need to figure out what it means to put consumer tech to productive day-to-day use.'"
Comment Re:Not (primarily) about round-rects (Score 1) 313
The 2 thumb pads on the Q1 disappear from the Galaxy.
Q1 is landscape but the Galaxy is portrait.
Q1 shows a scrolling list of text, but the Galaxy has icons all but identical in design, colour, and layout to the iPad/iPhone.
I grant you the patent is stupid, but the Galaxy is not an evolution from the Q1, it's a rip-off of the iPad.
I'm surprised they didn't call it the Samsung iApplePad.
Comment Re:Not (primarily) about round-rects (Score 1) 313
Bizarrely the patent system allows Apple to patent what should be a trademarked look.
Therefore when someone egregiously copies that look, Apple rightly sue them for patent abuse.
The problem is the patent system.
It should be narrow and technical but it's not, therefore a litigation about trademark abuse becomes a patent strumach.
Submission + - Steve Jobs dies (cnn.com)
Zaatxe writes: Steve Jobs, the visionary in the black turtleneck who co-founded Apple in a Silicon Valley garage, built it into the world's leading tech company and led a mobile-computing revolution with wildly popular devices such as the iPhone, died Wednesday. He was 56.
Comment Re:Wrong approach (Score 1) 384
I'm also a software engineer. I couldn't agree more. mod parent up
Comment Re:This is so reassuring... (Score 1) 213
Chill dude, you'll bust a vessel.
If you want to help the children in DRC, give some money to the International Trade Union organisation or the Red Cross, or lobby your congressman (or equivalent).
Samsung, Nokia, et al buy the same niobium etc from the same mining companies. Only changing the mining companies behaviour in the DRC is going to help.
