aceperry

"But did it actually get faster? Not by much"

It's a new runtime, and expected to get better and faster. If you don't like it that much, and you sound like you really HATE Android, maybe you should use something else. You'll feel better.

I have to agree with you about the MS shills. Seems pretty bizarre, especially with all of the hate on Google that appeared instantly here. They also include incredible love for MS products, which I don't see anywhere else. Sure feels like an astroturf campaign.

I have a completely different view of how Microsoft behaved when it was dominant, vs Google today. Back in the day, most of the tech industry feared Microsoft. MS had a monopoly over hardware and software companies and bullied everyone. Google today doesn't have this monopoly that Microsoft held. Even the author's description of Google's strengths, "Google’s pillars of ads and search have become its Windows and Office", aren't as dominant as MS' products and definitely not for as long either. So I think it's incorrect to say that Google has become the MS of old. Those were the bad old days, when MS dictated how things were done in the industry.

While Google has tried to push the rest of the industry to its way of thinking, it doesn't always succeed, whereas MS in its heyday was quite capable of strong-arming the rest of the industry, time and time again. Google has generally pushed and supported an open source approach which MS is finally beginning to move towards. Quite a change for MS, nothing new for Google.

Kelly's article uses some poor examples and paints a glowing picture of MS. I think he's correct in that there's been a shift in MS getting a lot more positive press, but I don't think he's correct at all about how poorly run Google has become.

I realize this is short on specifics, but I don't want to make this too long. I'll agree with the critics of Android that there are problems, but in my view, Android has always been rough on the edges and is finally getting better overall. Especially compared to the early years.

"This reminds me so much to Windows 95 ..."

That statement is so wrong... I switched to linux from Win95 because the bluescreens sucked so bad. No comparison really.

Preliminary cause is described here: https://status.cloud.google.com/incident/compute/15045

"Nokia, Motorola, Erickson, Blackberry. There was a glut at the cheaper end"

None of the dominant phones had what Apple's iphone had. Apple is clearly not catering to the low end/margin business either.

"But for Apple to make a big dent in a sector that is highly technical but with significant brand and aesthetic factors?"

Not sure what you're saying here. But in the past, Apple introduced some major changes to the marketplace around their products. They would have to do that if they want to be competitive in the automotive space.

Gnome Terminal is the shit. It's totally awesome and other terms seem to copy it, like xfce's terminal. It wraps text just fine for me, has profile switching and lots of other features.

Funny you mention that OS X is taking away options and features. That's how I feel about the Gnome team's approach to their desktop. But Gnome has a lot of small programs and widgets that I find useful. Even though I use stock Ubuntu and Unity on my main desktop, I use Xubuntu on all of my other machines. I'm using ubuntu and variants mainly because of the simple and comprehensive package management system. The variants are really cool too.

I'm not a fan of the Unity desktop either, but I find that once you get used to it, it's tolerable. It's like a useable version of Windows 8, more of a touch centric interface than a desktop interface. Fortunately all of the other Ubuntu variants have real menus. And the variants have a high degree of compatibility with stock Ubuntu so you can install and use things that are made for stock Ubuntu.

While Apple revolutionized some industries in the past, I wonder if manufacturing cars makes any sense for them. Under Steve Jobs, Apple has completely changed computers, the music and entertainment industries, cell phones and mobile devices. They did all this to sell hardware.

I don't see how they can revolutionize the car business anymore than Google or any of the other large companies doing autonomous cars. They're going to have to bring something to the table other than a car. All of the large car companies have autonomous vehicle research programs. They can spin out a product, as they've done when Toyota's Prius became a commercial hit. On the lower end of the scale, there are cars coming from China, possibly India and other nations which are due to hit the US soon. Getting into the auto market against the high end Mercedes, Audis, BMWs, and Italian cars would be a tough market. They would also be competing against well established and loved brands. Not sure what part of the market they would fit in or even target.

"But I had to add some tape, as it wasn't strong enough to keep itself in place properly"

I hope it was duct tape, otherwise it may not last for too long. Funny project, done in a cool way, and a great hack.

'The key word being "part", so the headline is incorrect.'

That's a ridiculous argument. Parsing the spec like that is meaningless.

"While it was the main innovation in 2.0, EDR was optional in the spec."

Can't argue with non-reasoning like that.

Nice. Reminds me of a software monitor. Can't wait to see what other features will become available.

"the patents concern a specific feature of Bluetooth 2.0"

That's not a "feature" of Bluetooth 2.0+, it's a fundamental part of the Bluetooth spec. Without it you couldn't have Bluetooth. So the headline is correct.

I would love to see that paper.

I fully agree with you there. I'm working on some BT stuff, and find it to be lacking, mainly the software stack. The spec looks ok for a wireless interface, the quality of the stacks are all over the place.

"Squeezing the people doing the work was probably not the idea from the outset"

Looking at some of the companies that are popping up, it's looking more like the case where the "contractors" are getting squeezed more and more. So yeah, in answer to your question, a lot of the gig economy is looking like exploitation.

On another note, Uber started off as a fantastic opportunity for "gig work." But a lot of Uber's latest changes are definitely exploitation.

Absolutely! Glad to see that most commenters here see that this gig economy is really bsed on exploitation.

"their people don't understand economics and vote in favor of things that are economically good"

And what is economically good for India? You say that as if you have the correct answer. You're also assuming that the people there voted for the system that they have, and due to their ignorance, they ended up with a system that is causing their problems. I doubt that the present state of India can be attributed to something so simple.

Funny that you mention elevator operator. When I moved to San Francisco, I saw a few elevator operators in some of the city's buildings. Where did you get the idea that the elevator operator in India had a job "Because he needs a job."?

I wouldn't blame India for its condition due to having a jobs program. They started off far down the hole when they became a nation after securing their freedom from colonization. They have progressed in many ways, including some of the best schools in the world (IIT), some of the best entrepreneurs and engineers, and some the most advanced technologies (nuclear weapons, modern military, space program). But there is large disparity between rich and poor, partly due to technology enriching some few. Kind of similar to what is happening here in the US, except that the US has/had a much large middle class.

It's not necessarily the answer, or even a good answer. But the service sector has been growing for a long time. And it has become one of the huge growth areas due to the software revolution. Just look at the types of jobs produced by Uber/Lyft/et al, and the many delivery services that are popping up. They're mostly low paying jobs for the most part, which in my mind, is not the answer to the destruction of jobs happening now.

I wholeheartedly agree with your points and sentiment, but have one minor issue. It might actually be cheaper in that type of economy to have manual laborers than to use machinery which requires its own support infrastructure and much higher priced workers. That is one reason why many of the poorer countries don't have some of the more "efficent" and high volume machinery that are used in the industrialized countries.

In an economy where there aren't a lot of jobs and a lot of poverty, just about any decent job would give someone dignity. In those economies, it's probably cheaper to have human labor than machines.

Now it's getting spooky. What's next, self-aware computers? With their own impulse for self-preservation? Oh noes!

Maybe I am.

Don't unplug the computer!

Nice, I didn't know about this board. It looks pretty interesting.

LOL, I totally love this. I wonder if this uses web audio.

I laugh whenever someone tells me that they never buy anything over the internet. Their reasoning is that they're afraid of hackers going after online transactions. It seems to me that most of the serious security problems reside in the places that keep your money or access to your money, such as banks, credit cards, or even businesses such as Anthem, etc.

Another problem that I've seen from banks is that they all use Microsoft Windows for most of their employees. That's got to be the worst OS in terms of security. Not saying that you can't break into other systems, but it is so much easier under Windows.

"I'm not dismissing their experience (if any)"

Does that mean if someone doesn't like Win8, they don't have any experience? Or they're not serious? Sounds like an insulting dig at people you don't agree with.

"My point is that there is no discontinuity between lots of people loving Windows 8 on touch-based 2-in-1s and tablets and lots of people hating it -- or, more often, hating the idea of it -- on non-touch machines."

??? Not sure what you're trying to say here.

"Windows 7 Pro is still available from Microsoft as a current product"

Good news if you don't want Win8 on your laptop/desktop. I guess you'll have peace when Windows 10 comes out, and you don't have to hear any negative comments about Windows 8.

LOL, looking at the headline for this item, I have to agree.

This is what I've been looking for. I didn't want to have to create something like this myself, but wanted to be able to reuse older smartphones lying around. I don't know if I want to use JS though.