21082930
submission
recoiledsnake writes:
What would be your first guess about what an app store sells? Don't be fooled, Apple warns, the phrase "app store" is not generic and can only be used to describe Cupertino's ... um, app store? "Apple denies that, based on their common meaning, the words 'app store' together denote a store for apps," Apple said in a Thursday filing with a California district court. All this notwithstanding that Jobs himself used the phrase generically while referring to Android app stores. Previous coverage here and here.
20924142
submission
recoiledsnake writes:
Google spent a lot of time yesterday talking up WebGL, but UK security firm Context seems to think users should disable the feature because it poses a serious security threat, and the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) is encouraging people to heed that advice. According to Context, a malicious site could pass code directly to a computer's GPU and trigger a denial of service attack or simply crash the machine. Ne'er-do-wells could also use WebGL and the Canvas element to pull image data from another domain, which could then be used as part of a more elaborate attack. Khronos, the group that organizes the standard, responded by pointing out that there is an extension available to graphics card manufacturers that can detect and protect against DoS attacks, but it did little to satisfy Context — the firm argues that inherent flaws in the design of WebGL make it very difficult to secure.
20211596
submission
recoiledsnake writes:
Microsoft writes in a blog post that Google knowingly lied to the court while suing the US government over considering only Microsoft implementations. We previously discussed Google winning an injunction against the Department of Interior over this. According to Microsoft, Google "filed a motion for a preliminary injunction telling the court three times in a single document that Google Apps for Government is certified under FISMA.Google has repeated this statement in many other places as well. Indeed, for several months and as recently as this morning, Google’s website states, “Google Apps for Government – now with FISMA certification.” And as if that’s not sufficient, Google goes farther on another webpage and states "Google Apps for Government is certified and accredited under the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA)." So imagine my surprise on Friday afternoon when, after some delay, some of the court papers were unsealed, at least in part. There for all to see was a statement by the Department of Justice contradicting Google on one of its basic FISMA claims. The DOJ’s brief says “On December 16, 2010, counsel for the Government learned that, notwithstanding Google’s representations to the public at large, its counsel, the GAO and this Court, it appears that Google’s Google Apps for Government does not have FISMA certification. This revelation was apparently as striking to the lawyers at the Department of Justice as it was to me. As a result, the work of engineers and IT professionals was replaced, at least temporarily, by filings by lawyers. This meant significant delay for the Department of the Interior, which was trying to save millions of dollars and upgrade the email services for its 88,000 employees.
19906348
submission
recoiledsnake writes:
The upcoming release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Server will remove the formerly bundled open source Samba software and replace it with Apple's own tools for Windows file sharing and network directory services. In both Mac OS X Server and client editions, Samba enables Macs to share files with Windows clients on the network and access Windows file servers. It has also later allowed Mac OS X Server to work as an NT Domain Controller to manage network accounts and make roaming profiles and home directories available to Windows PC users. However, the Samba team has moved active development of the project to the more strict GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially. Apple is now said to be recommending Active Directory to users who are still dependent upon the older NT Domain Controller network directory services. Apple has previously stopped contributing code to GCC and started looking at other options like LLVM because of GCC's switch to GPLv3.
19884070
submission
recoiledsnake writes:
Apple has removed the GayCure app after the pressure on Apple to remove the app started to snowball, culminating in an online petition initiated by Change.org which collected over 140,000 online signatures from people who wanted the app removed. Searching for the app now yields zero search results and Exodus International President Alan Chambers tweeted the following on Tuesday night. "It''(TM)s official, the @ExodusInl App is no longer in the @AppStore. Incredibly disappointing. Watch out, it could happen to you. #freedom"
Gay Cure isn'(TM)t the first app Apple has(TM) removed for touting an oeanti-homosexual philosophy. Apple back in November removed an appcalled the oeManhattan Declaration which advocated the oedignity of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
17890940
submission
recoiledsnake writes:
The controversial Manhattan Declaration App has now been pulled from the App Store after more than 7,000 people signed a Change.org petition urging Apple to delete it. Calling it "anti-gay" and "anti-choice," the petition questioned Apple's decision to approve the application and deem it free of "objectionable content." "Want to join the hate fest? There's an app for that!" Change.org said on its site. "Apple needs to hear from concerned people now! Let's send a strong message to Apple that supporting homophobia and efforts to restrict choice is bad business.". In a letter sent to Apple CEO Steve Jobs earlier this week, the religious leaders said they were disappointed to learn that the company stopped selling the application, which included the text of the "Manhattan Declaration." "We do not know exactly why the app was pulled, as we have yet to receive any explanation from Apple, but we assume that it was the result of pressure brought to bear by some who, for blatantly ideologically partisan reasons, claim that the Manhattan Declaration is bigoted, or otherwise offensive," they said. "We hope that you will see how wrong it would be to let one side shut down the opposing side in a debate by slandering their opponents with prejudicial labels such as "bigot" or "homophobe." In a statement, Apple said, "We removed the Manhattan Declaration app from the App Store because it violates our developer guidelines by being offensive to large groups of people." The iPhone application initially disappeared from the app store in late November, The app had previously been given a 4+ rating by Apple that signifies that it does not consider the material offensive.. Can't keep both sides happy I guess. Or maybe they could sidestep such issues by removing the restriction to install apps only from the App Store.
17845496
submission
recoiledsnake writes:
The controversial Manhattan Declaration App has now been pulled from the App Store after more than 7,000 people signed a Change.org petition urging Apple to delete it. Calling it "anti-gay" and "anti-choice," the petition questioned Apple's decision to approve the application and deem it free of "objectionable content." "Want to join the hate fest? There's an app for that!" Change.org said on its site. "Apple needs to hear from concerned people now! Let's send a strong message to Apple that supporting homophobia and efforts to restrict choice is bad business.". In a letter to Steve Jobs, religious leaders said they were disappointed to learn that the company stopped selling the application, which included the text of the "Manhattan Declaration." "We do not know exactly why the app was pulled, as we have yet to receive any explanation from Apple, but we assume that it was the result of pressure brought to bear by some who, for blatantly ideologically partisan reasons, claim that the Manhattan Declaration is bigoted, or otherwise offensive," they said. "We hope that you will see how wrong it would be to let one side shut down the opposing side in a debate by slandering their opponents with prejudicial labels such as "bigot" or "homophobe." In a statement, Apple said, "We removed the Manhattan Declaration app from the App Store because it violates our developer guidelines by being offensive to large groups of people." The app had previously been given a 4+ rating by Apple that signifies that it does not consider the material offensive. Can't keep both sides happy I guess. Or maybe they could sidestep such issues entirely by removing the restriction to install apps only from the App Store.
17789066
submission
recoiledsnake writes:
The main GNU source repository server savannah.gnu.org, used as a central code repository for many GNU projects including gcc, has been compromised by a SQL injection attack and is currently offline. Attackers were able to read encrypted passwords and decrypt them, some presumably by brute force leading to project membership access. There was no database loss since a working backup system was at least maintained. However, the attack does raise big questions about why a organization that prides itself on the security of its software failed to follow minimum basic security practices like storing password hashes instead of encrypting them and mitigating SQL injection attacks. There are no details on whether the attackers were able to sneak in malicious code to any of the projects hosted by GNU. And, as we all know from Ken Thompson's Turing award lecture, once the compiler is compromised, it's game over.
17762050
submission
recoiledsnake writes:
Apple dialed it's battle with Android up a notch today by banning an Android magazine app from it's App Store, leaving no way for users to install the app on iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches without jailbreaking. The reason for rejection, as given by an Apple rep was "You know... your magazine...It's just about Android.... we can't have that in our App Store." The bi-monthly publication — the Android counterpart to an iPhone magazine Dixon began putting out earlier this year — launched Nov. 11. "It's funny really because I don't think we would sell many magazines on Android through Apple App Store," Dixon told Media Watch. "But the question is where this is going." This comes on the heels of Jobs lashing out at Android calling it fragmented and it's patent attacks on Android.
17126094
submission
recoiledsnake writes:
Windows Phone 7 is launching today in Europe and on November 8 in the US. Anandtech has a detailed review of the Windows Phone 7 and Microsoft's last ditch effort to regain marketshare in the highly competitive mobile landscape currently dominated by Apple and Google. Microsoft takes a middle road between the iPhone(no variety in hardware) and Android (fragmentation, different UI schemes) by building a platform but with strict guidelines on minimum hardware and allowing no OS customizations by OEMs or carriers. This allows Microsoft to push updates directly to the devices like Apple. This will eliminate the long wait for OS updates as seen with Android devices. Anandtech reports that 'The overall UI is very well thought out. It’s clean, attractive and performant. It’s easily the best UI Microsoft has ever created and one that I hope inspires revolutionary designs within the company’s other business units.Microsoft made great use of GPU acceleration throughout the OS. Scrolling, panning, zooming, everything is ridiculously smooth. In IE, panning and translating around pages is incredibly fast. It’s iOS level fast if not faster.IE does an impressive job keeping up with even extremely fast scrolling up or down a page. No doubt this is due partially to GPU accelerated UI. Android has some serious work to do here, as translating around on pages and multitouch zoom frequently feel choppy.
15688030
submission
recoiledsnake writes:
The author of iPhone prototyping tool Briefs has decided to open source it after the App store submission has been in limbo for over three months. The app had got into trouble for what Apple believes being able to run interpreted code though the author denies it, saying all the compiling happens on the Mac. While Rob stays civil, his co-worker blasts Apple for not even rejecting the app. Three months is nothing compared to Google Voice for the iPhone though, which is still being studied further by Apple from over a year.
14350938
submission
recoiledsnake writes:
Apple has rejected calls for a manufacturing hardware fix to the iPhone 4 antenna woes in the highly anticipated press conference today. Instead, Apple will offer a free case to anyone who faces the issue. According to Jobs, only 0.55 % of iPhone 4 customers have contacted AppleCare with the issue and the return rate is less than that of the previous iPhones.While all phones might have a signal drop, according to Consumer Reports' findings in a RF-shielded lab, other phones tested(including the iPhone 3G) do not have the extra drop because of not having an exposed external antenna like the iPhone 4. This also jives with multiple Anandtech articles and field tests that there is indeed a problem specific to the iPhone 4 and call for Apple to fix the hardware. And just as a clarification to their devoted fanbase, Jobs included this gem: "You know, we're not perfect. We know that, you know that. And phones aren't perfect either."
13657176
submission
recoiledsnake writes:
Apple is suing HTC again over patent infringement. Apple is adding two new patents to the twenty included in the earlier case while adding additional details to two patents already included previously. Although Android is not mentioned in any of the court documents, many of the patent infringement complaints refer to the software rather than the hardware that HTC manufactures, leading to speculation that Google is the real target, especially considering that Android sales are surpassing the iPhone's. With HTC countersuing Apple, Microsoft siding with HTC over Android, and Apple trying to stop import of Nokia phones, it seems like Apple has set off a patent Armageddon in the mobile space.
13641836
submission
recoiledsnake writes:
Apple is suing HTC again over patent infringement. Apple is adding two new patents to the twenty included in the earlier case while adding additional details to two patents already included previously. Although Android is not mentioned in any of the court documents, many of the patent infringement complaints refer to the software rather than the hardware that HTC manufactures, leading to speculation that Google is the real target, especially considering that Android sales are surpassing the iPhone's. With HTC countersuing Apple, Microsoft siding with HTC over Android, and Apple trying to stop import of Nokia phones, has Apple set off a patent Armageddon in the mobile space which can be summarised as Apple vs. the rest?
