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Comment This is gonna be sweet! (Score 1) 89

by InterruptDescriptorT (#41958643) Attached to: PSP Emulator For Android Released
Wow. This is something I've been waiting for for a long time. I've never been a fan of the style of games on the iTunes App Store--I like my old school gaming, and I'm excited that it's available to me in a mobi--

What?

Oh, I have an iPhone. I'll never get to experience this.

Never mind then. Thanks, Steve.

Comment And showing every bit of its age too, apparently (Score 0, Troll) 192

by InterruptDescriptorT (#39445803) Attached to: GCC Turns 25
I love GCC, don't get me wrong, but it seems to me from the research I've done that it's been left in the dust by Intel's and even Microsoft's compilers, which do a far better job at generating optimized code, especially for x86/x64. I have an application where I'd love to use GCC rather than a horrible vendor-specific C/C++ compiler to generate some ARM firmware, but I'm getting a lot of resistance due to its perceived poor/bloated code generation.

Can anyone confirm or deny this and make me at least able to justify GCC as a possible option again?

Comment And the cycle needlessly continues. (Score 3, Insightful) 255

by InterruptDescriptorT (#39395593) Attached to: New iPad Jailbroken Already
It's terribly unfortunate that Apple has decided that iPad owners have no right to install whatever software the owner sees fit on his or her own tablet, thus necessitating (and encouraging) the jailbreaking community.

Mad props to these guys and their reverse engineering skills. Perhaps one day Apple will decide it's simply not worth the effort to keep up with the cat-and-mouse game of jailbreak/patch and just finally allow people to sideload apps and use their tablets however they want. Sadly, I don't foresee this happening.
Firefox

Submission + - MS hides Firefox extension in toolbar update 2

Submitted by Jan
Jan writes: As part of its regular Patch Tuesday, Microsoft released an update for its various toolbars, and this update came with more than just documented fixes. The update also installs an add-on for Internet Explorer and an extension for Mozilla Firefox, both without the user's permission.

Ars Technica

Comment Re:we need to stop coddling stupidity. (Score 5, Insightful) 81

by InterruptDescriptorT (#31221140) Attached to: Twitter Hit By BZPharma LOL Phishing Attack
I don't necessarily disagree with you when you say 'We need to let people like that sink or swim', but in this world of tightly connected social networks where friendship among individuals governs their level of access to your details, I'm not so sure about that. You're only as secure as your weakest link. If one of your less technologically-savvy friends on Facebook happens to fall for this scheme and gives up his login information to the attackers, then your information is exposed to them, and you're put at risk. This is why while I sympathize with your point, I still think it's incredibly important that phishing attacks like this be cracked down upon as quickly as possible to prevent exactly that sort of thing from happening.
Security

Somali Pirates Open Up a "Stock Exchange" 666

Posted by kdawson from the send-in-the-sba dept.
reginaldo writes to clue us that pirates in Somalia have opened up a cooperative in Haradheere, where investors can pay money or guns to help their favorite pirate crew for a share of the piracy profits. "'Four months ago, during the monsoon rains, we decided to set up this stock exchange. We started with 15 "maritime companies" and now we are hosting 72. Ten of them have so far been successful at hijacking,' Mohammed [a wealthy former pirate who took a Reuters reporter to the facility] said. ... Piracy investor Sahra Ibrahim, a 22-year-old divorcee, was lined up with others waiting for her cut of a ransom pay-out after one of the gangs freed a Spanish tuna fishing vessel. 'I am waiting for my share after I contributed a rocket-propelled grenade for the operation,' she said, adding that she got the weapon from her ex-husband in alimony. 'I am really happy and lucky. I have made $75,000 in only 38 days since I joined the "company."'"
Microsoft

Submission + - US court tells Microsoft told to stop selling Word (arnnet.com.au)

Submitted by oranghutan
oranghutan writes: A judge in a court in Texas has given Microsoft 60 days to comply with an order to stop selling Word products in their existing state after a patent infringement suit filed by i4i. According to the injunction Microsoft is forbidden from selling Word products that let people create XML documents, which both the 2003 and 2007 versions let you do. An analyst quoted in the article — Michael Cherry from Directions — said: "It's going to take a long time for this kind of thing to get sorted out." Basically, most don't believe the injunction will stop Word being sold as there are ways of getting around it. However, in early 2009 a jury in the Texas court ordered Microsoft to pay i4i US$200 million for infringing the patent. http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/314620/injunction_microsoft_word_unlikely_halt_sales
Microsoft

Bill Gates Remembers 1979 310

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-don't dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Last week Gizmodo had a special celebration of 1979, the last year before a digital tsunami hit, that put Bill Gates in a nostalgic mood this week. Bill chimed in with his own memories of that seminal year when everything changed. 'In 1979, Microsoft had 13 employees, most of whom appear in that famous picture that provides indisputable proof that your average computer geek from the late 1970s was not exactly on the cutting edge of fashion,' wrote Gates. 'By the end of the year we'd doubled in size to 28 employees. Even though we were doing pretty well, I was still kind of terrified by the rapid pace of hiring and worried that the bottom could fall out at any time.' What made Gates feel a little more confident was that he began to sense that BASIC was on the verge of becoming the standard language for microcomputers. 'By the middle of 1979, BASIC was running on more than 200,000 Z-80 and 8080 machines and we were just releasing a new version for the 8086 16-bit microprocessor. As the numbers grew, we were starting to think beyond programming languages, too, and about the possibility of creating applications that would have real mass appeal to consumers.' Gates remembers that in 1979 there were only 100 different software products that had more than $100 M in annual sales and all of them were for mainframes. 'In April, the 8080 version of BASIC became the first software product built to run on microprocessors to win an ICP Million Dollar Award. Today, I would be surprised if the number of million-dollar applications isn't in the millions itself' writes Gates. 'More important, of course, is the fact that more than a billion people around the world use computers and digital technology as an integral part of their day-to-day lives. That's something that really started to take shape in 1979.'"
Cellphones

Submission + - The Irksome Cellphone Industry (nytimes.com)

Submitted by gollum123
gollum123 writes: David Pogue of the NYTimes wonders why congress is worrying about the exclusive handset contracts when there are more whopping things that are broken, unfair and anticompetitive in the American cellphone industry. ( http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/technology/personaltech/23pogue.html?pagewanted=1&hpw ) He lists Text messaging fees — Currently 20 cents each to send and recieve a message, Double billing — getting billed for sending and receiving a call, Why companies do not reduce the price of the contract after you have paid off your cell phone among the major problems not being addressed by congress. "Right now, the cell carriers spend about $6 billion a year on advertising. Why doesn't it occur to them that they'd attract a heck of a lot more customers by making them happy instead of miserable? By being less greedy and obnoxious? By doing what every other industry does: try to please customers instead of entrap and bilk them? But no. Apparently, persuading cell carriers to treat their customers decently would take an act of Congress."

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That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers. - Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle in "Oath of Fealty"

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