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Comment Analogy to BMW Subscription Heated Seats. (Score 1) 94

...re trying to make so forgive me if I am out to lunch, but this matters naught to the consumer. This is just back-office dealings that either adds $5 to the cost of a laptop or doesn't. It's there vendors choice what licenses they pay or don't pay. Then they get to set the price on their laptop after it all shapes out.

If the hardware is still present, but is disabled, you're still carrying around the hardware. Most importantly, you're probably still powering its logic even if it's inaccessible to you.

BMW, like most German cars, is overcomplicated and overpriced garbage sold only to self-proclaimed car enthusiasts who wouldn't know how to change a tire let alone a timing chain. BMW got themselves into a bit of controversy by including heated seats which only functioned by subscription.

Now, say I had bought a BMW but didn't want the heated seats. I don't pay for the subscription. There's no additional cost to me, the purchaser of the car, because the profit from the people who do opt for the subscription are the ones paying the cost of the extra hardware in my car, correct?

Wrong. I am now carrying around an extra-beefy alternator to power the heated seats. I am now carrying around all the extra wiring to power the heated seats. All of this impacts my performance and my fuel efficiency. And all of this extra complexity adds a failure liability when something damages part of the heated seat hardware. All for a feature I specifically did not ask for by refusing the subscription.

With a disabled chunk of logic embedded in a processor, is it a negligible cost and a negligible risk? Maybe, but as the purchaser, it's crap that I didn't ask for, and you are imposing on me. If I have to carry it around and power it up, I expect to be able to use it.

If the manufacturer doesn't want to supply a feature then they should not supply the hardware. Leave the spots on the circuit board unpopulated. In the case of a chip, leave it off the die.

Comment Re:More IBM vaporware (Score 2) 19

OS/2 had no security features needed for multiuser support. It might as well have been classic MacOS. Citrix had a multiuser version of OS/2 with security tacked on, but it wasn't a realistic solution and was never popular. Building an OS without security was the moronic decision that killed it. Plus IBM never did anything meaningful to promote it so nobody cared. That it was used anywhere (especially in ATMs) was a horrible decision itself because of the lack of security features and has created untold woes. Maybe nobody ever got fired because they bought IBM, but they should have.

Comment Re: Good products (Score 3, Insightful) 94

It is neither right or wrong

It's wrong. The processor has a feature. People will reasonably assume they can use that feature. Then they find out it's disabled.

assuming the features or lack thereof is declared upfront.

If that declaration is not in the largest font size used in the materials then it's hidden.

Comment Re:Good to see (Score 3, Interesting) 29

Indeed, there are a great many trade secrets in the RF business. However, I expect all this to level out in the coming years. Physics provides a limited spectrum, and the unlicensed and licensed sides in this are already squabbling over what spectrum there is, because all the useful bands (<=6-7GHz) are now allocated, somehow, to one side or the other.

The Wi-Fi people understand this: Wi-Fi 7 already covers all the unlicensed spectrum that isn't still being squabbled over, and even some that is. Wi-Fi 8, therefore, doesn't deal in new spectrum—there isn't any to be had—instead focusing on refinements that improve efficiency, contention, stability, security, etc. That's all great, but it also belies the underlying reality that the future of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, et al., at least for mobile applications that have any useful range (there are much higher frequency bands, but the physics of attenuation limit the value of these,) is limited by spectrum.

So in the near term, all the players are going to max out the performance that physics allows in the spectrum available. It's a natural cork in the development pipeline. Notice, in the summary, the mention of MediaTek. That's a fabless Taiwanese company, ranking among the Broadcom's and Apple's of the world. They're all running up against the limits of physics and they'll all eventually achieve parity with one another as a result.

Comment Re:not a shock (Score 0) 29

Yeah, that was a big goof, thanks for understanding.

Apple is capable of hiring talented people and creating a useful product. They just don't seem to be capable of being user-friendly in the ways that matter to me. TBH they were never great at it, and MUGs did the heavy lifting in the customer relations department for them for free. Anyway I'm totally capable of believing their performance claims, to a reasonable point, especially when the results aren't putting them first.

I wish they were friendlier, because their hardware is reasonably impressive. I'm also just not in their target demographic apparently because I'd rather have a slightly thicker device with better cooling and battery capacity.

Comment Re: How dense can they be? (Score 1) 51

It's not impossible, but the switch would be expensive. It's probably easier and just as effective just to shield them, and tie the shield to the chassis ground.

Another option would be to switch power to the radio chip, if it's in a package which makes that convenient. This might also disable bluetooth if you do it to the infotainment system, or cause a code to be set...

Comment Re: Mom's of the world will prevent it. (Score 1) 15

Antibacterial soap doesn't use antibiotics, it uses chemicals known to destroy antibiotics directly and physically. It's usually done with compounds they can't reasonably develop resistance to. This is easier than in antibiotics because they don't have to be safe to put in your body.

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