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Comment just have police do their thing! (Score 2) 282

We all know there is no security without physical security.
But let's forget about that for a second.
Even if you make it ueber-secure (not like today when in many Samsung devices the IMEI is actually in some obfuscated file in the efs partition!) and you really manage to bound each device to an IMEI you still have the challange of managing the blacklist/"nuke from the orbit" authorization list.

It costs 5-10-15EUR to send a box full with phones across Europe, and no customs at all if it's within EU.
You need to have (at least) EU-wide database. How do you manage that? What recourse you have if you bought your phone in Germany, you leave in Belgium and it gets blacklisted by an operator in Bulgaria based on some typo from a dodgy police station in village? How can you argue that (hint: they don't even use the latin alphabet in Bulgaria)?

We had enough of this country-coded DVDs and network locked phone and all the crap. Any more of this and will give (another) unfair advantage to your operator: the only safe phones will be the ones bought directly, they know for sure it's legit. Anything else is a risk.

The real way out here is just to have police go after the thieves. Even the older phones could be tracked well enough and with some social engineering (if you had access to the list of calls) you could find out who has the phone without any GPS or camera and whatnot. However, they just don't bother even if you give them the position of the phone within meters, inside a single-house and a picture of the user.

Comment Re:Give up (Score 1) 250

Sure, first reader is 119.99$ and the second one 250 EUR, yay for people with more money than sense!

Of course if you pay enough somebody will make you some adapter to shove data into the iPhone despite iPhone's lack of connectivity (not only over wifi but there are some adapters that use the microphone analog input to send data to the iphone!). All that because of SPP Apple refuses to implement, even if it's present basically everywhere else since more than 10 years ago (yes, that includes mobile OSes like Windows Mobile 2003, symbian, etc).

Comment Re:No market (Score 1) 114

Oops!

There was a problem starting Bananabread. Please see the Troubleshooting section below for more information.

Technical Details: WebGL is missing.
=======
That much about web based apps that just work.
Wiki says:
"Mozilla Firefox - WebGL has been enabled on all platforms that have a capable graphics card with updated drivers since version 4.0"

Last firefox, ati 5770, what the heck?

Comment Re:Wonderful? At What Cost? (Score 1) 330

In the US reselling licenses is not been held up as legal.

Really? Says who, Microsoft? Of course, not long ago they would claim you can't even donate the PC and trash the OS; look for " It is a legal requirement that pre-installed operating systems remain with a machine for the life of the machine. If a company or individual donates a machine to your school, it must be donated with the operating system that was installed on the PC. "

Comment Re:Wonderful? At What Cost? (Score 1) 330

Not only it was buying OEM version (if you found a vendor) 100% legit all the time (even if presumably frown upon) but reselling+splitting the OEM license from the original hardware was uphold in courts already (look for OEM windows on German ebay for example).
It's not that bad (for M$) because they still have a Microsoft tax on most retail laptops and now they probably won't repeat the "long-lived XP mistake" but I'm sure they were for quite a few years scared shitless by the spectre of a sane 2nd hand market for "used OEM Windows" flooded with all the licenses coming from broken PCs 3-4-5 years old.

Comment Re:Yet another ultra-proprietary power connector!! (Score 1) 278

No, not unless the device sells better than the iphone; they concentrate on round generic connectors.
This "usb-like" power connector will be most likely patented to hell and back and even if you might find some adapter on ebay for sure you won't find it in any brick and mortar store.

Comment Yet another ultra-proprietary power connector!!! (Score 2) 278

What the heck is wrong with these companies? Are they really getting so much revenue in replacement power supplies that they have to screw everybody and their dog in the process?
Not only you can't change the (non-removable) battery but you also can't easily use any existent "power pack" (like powergorilla, not that I recommend that one but it's easy to google for and see what I mean). You can't just grab a "generic" laptop power supply (the one that comes with multiple voltages and a bunch of rounded tips) from any shop if you forgot/lost yours.
Also you can't consolidate on chargers/use your existent one, you can't efficiently charge it from an appropriate DC power supply without going via the inefficient route inverter->original power supply.
It seems these devices are designed more for executives with more money than sense than for people who actually travel and need the advertised portability.

Comment Re:Protruding lid edge (Score 3, Informative) 278

In the video it looks like the lid raises the laptop only when opened quite wide, at larger angles than would be possible on many similar devices. At "regular" angles the laptop sits on it's own feet and the lid moves freely, once you open it too much it will hit the desk and you need to slightly raise the laptop and let it sit on the lid.

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