Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Irresistible (Score 1) 266

This dev will bite.

Android phones have a cache file with the last 50 or so cell locations, and about 200 wi-fi locations. This is stored in a folder accessable only via root access to the phone - unlike iOS, it will never leave the phone unless a user goes looking for it.

Also, note the word 'cache'. It's used to speed up location requests, especially for their Navigation application and Latitude - oldest entries are deleted permanently as new ones come in, and from then on, if that location data survives anywhere, which knowing Google, it does, it'll be in anonymous format, with no way to link each location point with another one and no way to find out whose data it IS. iOS does not have a cache, it has a log. This is the key difference.

Well, there's that and the MULTIPLE warning screens on the device when you setup or install anything location aware. This cache file is empty if you never tick the "I allow my location to be used" box.

It's not particularly fair to compare the iOS logging to the Android...well...location functionality. The cache speeds up functionality massively.

Comment Some details about the testers, perhaps? (Score 1) 283

I have a Logitech MX518, with it's DPI cranked up to 1800. I am very quick with this mouse, whereas any of my friends who touch it tend to be slower, as the increased sensitivity often means they overshoot buttons on screen.
I would hazard that the testers might be quicker using office mice because that's what they are used to.

Comment Oh, great. (Score 1) 299

Summary is totally misleading - it describes both iOS and Android applications as being non-compliant, and doesn't even offer separate numbers for the two.

I'm all for OS bashing of one kind or another, but can we do it with some semblance of rationality, rather than only reporting half a story?

Comment Re:Intended Reaction? (Score 1) 724

Well technically this isn't true. Digital media has VERY LITTLE reproduction cost, insofar that it's negligible on a small scale, but I wouldn't say it has infinite supply. Take Steam, for example. They have a pay a LOT of money for hosting servers and bandwidth (and boy do they use a lot of bandwidth). Not to mention the power costs.
And I've been whizzing through all of your comments, and I can sum them up thus:
  • The current 'system' (which you haven't defined), is somehow broken, causing the need for piracy.
  • The act of piracy doesn't directly hurt anyone.
  • A pirate is the same as someone who doesn't give a developer money anyway.
  • Digital media is comparatively cheap to reproduce, so why limit it?

So, in order. To which system are you referring, copyright, or as you seem to be, basic capitalism? The act of paying money for a good or service may have it's flaws, but it's sure as hell the best we have right now. There have been some alternatives tried, they didn't go too well.

Interesting that piracy doesn't apparently hurt anyone. I've long viewed piracy as a sort of trial run - you download a game, then if you decide you like it, you pay up. If not, you probably weren't going to buy it anyway, so nothing lost from either party. This is true that nothing is lost.
Now here's the kicker. What if that pirate then gives his friends free copies, saying "I know you were going to go buy it, but save your money". Now the business HAS lost revenue, there's no question about it - people who were going to buy the game now no longer have to. If you can debate out of that one without using flawed logic you can have an internet cookie.
The idea that 'piracy hurts noone' is flawed, it's only blameless on the very upper tiers of who does it and who it affects. If you start following the chain of events from piracy as a whole, it does do damage. Nowhere near as much as companies would have you believe it does on their own products, but on an INDUSTRY.

A pirate is most certainly not the same as someone who just doesn't buy it in a shop and deprives a shop of a sale. The key difference is the pirate now has no technical reason to even spend the money, as he now has a copy of something he didn't pay for. The non-buyer may still spend the money at a later date, as he doesn't have a copy. The pirate is no longer even a potential customer, and therefore does not deserve to be treated as such.

As best I can tell, your morals regarding people getting something for nothing vary slightly from a large number of people here. You replied to an example of people sneaking into a cinema being okay, provided it wasn't a full house. I'd say that purely from a moral standpoint, that's wrong. It's your opinion however.

I covered digital media up top there, but artificially limiting supply of things is actually a long standing business tactic. Messing with this limiting will reduce market value. It's only possible to mess with the system with digital products, but another real world example is diamonds - they have controlled distribution, thus keeping the prices high.

Comment Re:The most interesting thing about that article.. (Score 1) 230

I'd refer to myself and a hell of a lot of people I know as 'technical people', and we still refer to the OS as the top level framework. We call the kernel the, wait for it...kernel. It keeps things simple if you don't decide to branch out your own language from what the normal people use.
It's like ping and latency. Yes they are different, but only a right asshat would start complaining if someone says in a video game "Damn I have a high ping". Met one of those guys so far.
Graphics

AMD's New Radeon HD 6870 and 6850 Cards Debut 153

MojoKid writes "AMD has officially launched their new Radeon HD 6800 series of graphics cards and the company has managed to drive cost and power consumption out of the product, while increasing performance efficiencies in the architecture. The Radeon HD 6870 and Radeon HD 6850 are new midrange cards that offer similar performance to previous generation high-end offerings, but at significantly lower price points and with an enhanced tessellation engine for better support of next generation DX11 game engines. The cards compete well with NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 470 and 460 products, besting them in some scenarios but trailing in others. Word is AMD is readying their flagship high-end Radeon 6900 family for release in Q4 as well."

Slashdot Top Deals

BYTE editors are people who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then carefully print the chaff.

Working...