Not that many people are talking about it, but Exchange support for GMail is also going away for free customers on Jan 13. That is a huge deal.

That means no push notification of GMails on the iPhone without using the GMail app.

Google's strategy is becoming clearer vis-a-vis iOS: replace Apple's native apps with its own. People will be forced to use the GMail app instead of native iOS mail if they want push notifications. Same thing with Maps---people are going to use Google's maps app whenever possible. At least Apple managed to grab a foothold with iMessage. That one won't be replaced by Google soon.

I think you're underrating him. RMS created the whole GNU philosophy, which has inspired thousands of developers---that is his main contribution. Go and read some interviews where Torvalds himself sings the praises of the GPL v2 and its role in the success of Linux.

I myself and many of you use emacs and gcc every day---I do think there's a special credit to be given to the creator of such projects that underlie the whole Linux ecosystem, even if the projects were forked away from him.

Despite being an disheveled person with questionable personal philosophies, RMS deserves credit for having created the notion of software that has a life of its own and cannot be squashed or secreted away by financially driven interests. He is like the NRA---just as the NRA resists any attempt at squashing personal gun ownership (if they came up with handheld thermonuclear weapons, I believe the NRA would staunchly oppose any attempt at regulating them), in the same way, RMS takes an extreme position, because he knows that everyone else will adjust for that and the net result will be something more geared towards the GNU philosophy than if he didn't.

Your ad-hominem attacks disparaging RMS's lowly status and John-the-baptist-like lifestyle are telling---perhaps you yourself failed at making money of GPL software that was meant to benefit everyone? I agree that it is difficult or impossible to make money of this type of software; only a select few can do it. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't exist, because it has the potential to empower the billions of financially oppressed poor in this world.

I think we pretty much established that there's nothing but rocks on Mars.

Yes the rover flight and landing are marvels of engineering. There's no denying that. But can't we go somewhere new?

In all seriousness, I feel like geologists have taken over NASA and these rovers are their way of bringing fame and power to the discipline of studying rocks.

Let's take the first steps to go drilling into a subsurface ocean instead, shall we not?

Funny, then now after the GNOME 3 and Windows 8 disasters, Max OS X offers the most "classic" desktop experience of all.

On Max OS X You can still right-click on things, you still have a launcher, a trash icon, etc. You can display live system statistics in the launcher, you can have as many freaking windows as you like tiled however you want them, and CHOICE of whether you want an old-school launcher or the "overview/LaunchControl" style. You can move the taskbar around etc...

Need I go on?

How did this happen? How did APPLE of all people remain faithful to the classic desktop while the Linux and MS devs are ditching it.

Feel free to accuse me of lying, but my data usage is actually dramatically LOWER on iPhone 5 than it was on the iPhone4. I am now able to use Pandora, whereas I couldn't before on iPhone4/iOS5. I have also had no problems with iOS6 Maps---in fact iOS6 Maps uses WAY less data than the intentionally crippled Google Maps, which would download bitmap instead of vector graphics and chomp through my data usage like a monster.

I don't mean to argue that Apple isn't an evil company and I recognize that iOS6 has some glaring problems that affect a significant minority of people. But, the truth is, for a vast majority of people, all is well in iOS land.

The disconnect between the reality of the experience for actual iPhone users and the way it gets reported online is massive---it's like two different universes. Walled garden aside, the actual experience with the iPhone is quite good. Whether you buy into the walled garden or not depends on whether there are iOS-exclusive apps you value over your right to tweak and pirate (which, let's be frank, that's what the "freedom" of Android is all about in the USA---sideloading pirated apps and futzing with widgets. In China and other freedom-restricted places, I agree sideloading could have real freedom-related importance).

I learned the hard way that non-LTS Ubuntu releases are alpha software. LTS releases are beta software on release day. Wait for the .1 release of LTS and you've got a good stable system.

The biggest problem with installing non-LTS is that any bug reports are fixed in the NEXT version and they don't give a damn about the the version you're actually reporting from. THEY treat it as alpha, therefore you should not be surprised.

-Written from 12.04.1

Why would anyone ever want to user WhatsApp over google voice is something I don't get.

Except is pretty damn hard to get rid of ads after jailbreaking (the iDevices at least). It would appear the jailbreak developers also make money off ads and they really try hard to stop you from blocking them. One iOS app for jailbroken phones (SBSettings) refuses to have its settings changed if you have messed with your hosts file. Bastards. At least they don't rm -rf the device like some android developers have threatened to do.

All that's being said in this whole article (and despite numerous confusing explanations below) is that you couldn't transmit quantum bits the same way you can transmit normal bits. This seemed to be an essential barrier to quantum computing, until this "teleportation" mechanism of transmitting bits was created.

HOWEVER

This "quantum teleportation" has a PREREQUISITE that for every quantum bit you send you also need to send some REGULAR bits via regular slower-than-light communication. Therefore

***Quantum teleportation just means sending quantum data at regular slower-or-equal-to-light speeds***

Your boycotting EA is not going to change the fact that the always-connected DRM model is going to be significantly more financially successful than the securerom one.

Put all the code on the servers, ship only the art, watch the money flow in. That is what Blizzard taught everyone.

The closer you travel to light speed, the more that distance will shrink for you, so that given sufficient energy you will be able to make the trip in an arbitrarily small amount of time as viewed by yourself.

This message brought to you by special relativity. It's the LAW

7 year old: (grabs phone off the kitchen counter) "Hey Daddy!"

Me (slicing raw pork): "Yes?"

7 year old: (phone unlocked, Runs off to play angry birds on it)

I am actually quite amazed that iOS piracy is so unchecked and that no servers have been seized. Once jailbroken, any app is available malware free off one site that self-polices and pretty much everyone trusts.

What's happening is that 1) in general apple users are willing to pay for stuff; 2) jailbreaking is a greater hurdle to overcome than sideloading; and as a result there is a lower iOS piracy rate and more profit for developers.

DRM is so old school my friend. Diablo 3 showed us that people will pay for a single-player game where only the art is on the client and the code runs on the server. Fast forward ten years: computing and bandwidth will be much cheaper and more powerful and the whole thing will be transparent to nearly everyone.

Diablo 3 will be the model for making people buy games.

We could do a similar mission to Europa for $4B. Not unlikely given that JWST alone is 6B.