CommentRe:Flash is an IDE/HLE now? (Score 1)850
The newest version of Flash allowed you to compile your swf into a native iPhone App. That's what this discussion is about, not Flash as in the browser plugin.
CommentRe:New movie made possible by *really good* games (Score 1)160
Yup, Tigon Studios. Viesel is a huge video game fan and apparently was very involved in the production of the game. He basically wanted to make the kind of game he'd want to actually go out and pay to play, regardless of the IP it was attached to. I remember buying Doom 3 and pirating Riddick when it came it. Doom 3 disappointed me, accused me of cracking it and pirating it when I didn't (I had to get a crack to run it just because it felt having a certain type of disc burning app meant I was pirating it), and just overall sucked. Riddick had comparable graphics, better performance, better storyline, better characterization, was longer, and was WAY more fun to play. I went out and bought it immediately as a show of support for games like that. Glad to see that money's helping the franchise. Hopefully they'll take some cues from the game, which was more similar to Pitch Black's vision of the universe than Chronicles in my opinion.
CommentRe:New movie made possible by *really good* games (Score 1)160
Video game based movie != Movie based video game
CommentNo WebOS support (Score 1)310
http://www.precentral.net/no-buzz-google-webos-spoofing-fails-fool
I still can't understand how it is that they're completely ignoring Palm's WebOS despite the fact that it's 99% identical to the iPhone's browser...
They did the same goddamn thing for Latitude and Wave. Both of those apps work fine on WebOS, but they block non-Android/iPhone user agents. Why are you blocking my phone even though your mobile web apps either 99% or 100% work on it Google? e_e
I still can't understand how it is that they're completely ignoring Palm's WebOS despite the fact that it's 99% identical to the iPhone's browser...
They did the same goddamn thing for Latitude and Wave. Both of those apps work fine on WebOS, but they block non-Android/iPhone user agents. Why are you blocking my phone even though your mobile web apps either 99% or 100% work on it Google? e_e
CommentRe:No. (Score 1)1634
Also, multi-tasking is [...] limited for technical reasons which you are either unwilling to research or unable to understand.
Then the OS is badly designed. I'm sorry, but that's the truth. Every single one of their major competitors has multi-tasking: Android, WebOS, Blackbery OS, shit, even the horrid Windows Mobile has multi-tasking. And guess what? My Palm Pre and my friend's Droid both get pretty much the same battery life as the iPhone, and are even similarly specced with the 3GS. And they don't feel sluggish when multi-tasking either.
Why are you forgiving Apple for making a poor platform? It's THEIR fault it can't multi-task, regardless of the reason.
Tracking Browsers Without Cookies Or IP Addresses?265
Peter Eckersley writes "The EFF has launched a research project called Panopticlick, to determine whether seemingly innocuous browser configuration information (like User Agent strings, plugin versions and fonts) may create unique fingerprints that allow web users to be tracked, even if they limit or delete cookies. Preliminary results indicate that the User Agent string alone has 10.5 bits of entropy, which means that for a typical Internet user, only one in about 1,500 (2 ^ 10.5) others will share their User Agent string. If you visit Panopticlick, you can get a reading of how rare or unique your browser configuration is, as well as helping EFF to collect better data about this problem and how best to defend against it." I remember laughing years ago when I would see users who had modified their user agent string with some sort of defiant pro-privacy message, without realizing that their action made them uniquely identifiable out of hundreds of thousands of others.
Tower Switch-Off Embarrasses Electrosensitives292
Sockatume writes "Residents in Craigavon, South Africa complained of '[h]eadaches, nausea, tinnitus, dry burning itchy skins, gastric imbalances and totally disrupted sleep patterns' after an iBurst communications tower was put up in a local park. Symptoms subsided when the residents left the area, often to stay with family and thus evade their suffering. At a public meeting with the afflicted locals, the tower's owners pledged to switch off the mast immediately to assess whether it was responsible for their ailments. One problem: the mast had already been switched off for six weeks. Lawyers representing the locals say their case against iBurst will continue on other grounds."
Dragging Telephone Numbers Into the Internet Age239
azoblue writes with this teaser from Ars Technica, presenting a tempting suggestion for online consolidation: "E-mail, IM, Facebook, phones—what if all of these ways to reach you over a network could be condensed into a single, unique number? The ENUM proposal aims to do just that, by giving everyone a single phone number that maps to all of their identifiers. Here's how it works, and why it isn't already widely used."
CommentRe:What is the point in studying Mars? (Score 1)152
Las Vegas was in an arid desert too, what's your point?
Mars is so interesting because of all the rocks out there, Mars would be shit-easy to terraform in comparison. Basically we'd pump out a whole bunch of CO2 (something we're already doing on earth, albeit as a byproduct) until the atmosphere gets a bit thicker. A thicker atmosphere traps heat better. Then we introduce vegetation to convert said CO2 into Oxygen (lots and lots and lots of algae really, that way when they die and decompose, it can be used as soil). Boom, habitable. It will take a while, but the sooner we start the sooner it'll be ready for long term colonization and exploration.
Yeah, may sound a little dumb now, but realize that the Earth's current population is estimated at around 6.8 BILLION people. Currently, many areas are already suffering from over population, in the conservative projection is that we'll reach 9 Billion people around 2040 (though this assumes no major shift in the trend for deaths, such as world changing medical breakthroughs, etc).
So one way or another, if we hope to continue to survive, we're not left much choice other than to expand to other planets/moons. And since Mars is relatively close, has similar gravity, and environmentally isn't much different from Earth (on the grand scale of things in the universe), terraforming it is a very real possibility.
Mars is so interesting because of all the rocks out there, Mars would be shit-easy to terraform in comparison. Basically we'd pump out a whole bunch of CO2 (something we're already doing on earth, albeit as a byproduct) until the atmosphere gets a bit thicker. A thicker atmosphere traps heat better. Then we introduce vegetation to convert said CO2 into Oxygen (lots and lots and lots of algae really, that way when they die and decompose, it can be used as soil). Boom, habitable. It will take a while, but the sooner we start the sooner it'll be ready for long term colonization and exploration.
Yeah, may sound a little dumb now, but realize that the Earth's current population is estimated at around 6.8 BILLION people. Currently, many areas are already suffering from over population, in the conservative projection is that we'll reach 9 Billion people around 2040 (though this assumes no major shift in the trend for deaths, such as world changing medical breakthroughs, etc).
So one way or another, if we hope to continue to survive, we're not left much choice other than to expand to other planets/moons. And since Mars is relatively close, has similar gravity, and environmentally isn't much different from Earth (on the grand scale of things in the universe), terraforming it is a very real possibility.
Neural Nets Make Art While High165
brilanon writes "Telepathic-critterdrug is a controversial fork of the open source artificial-life sim Critterding, a physics sandbox where blocky creatures evolve neural nets in a survival contest. What we've done is to give these animals an extra retina which is shared with the whole population. It's extended through time like a movie and they can write to it for communication or pleasure. Since this introduces the possibility of the creation of art, we decided to give them a selection of narcotics, stimulants and psychedelics. This is not in Critterding. The end result is a high-color cellular automaton running on a substrate that thinks and evolves, and may actually produce hallucinations in the user."
CommentRe:Googles-to-Apples Comparison (Score 1)445
Ok, now try rereading that sentence. Specifically the part where I wrote "current gen smartphones".
HTC is making all their Android phones have a 3.5mm stereo jack starting with the HTC Hero from mid-2009. The Droid and Eris have a headphone jack. The Pre and Pixi have headphone jacks, All blackberries have had headphone jacks for a few years now, I'm pretty sure every major WinMo phone from the past 2 years has a headphone jack... I could continue but it'd just be redundant.
It's one thing to say that normal phones don't have headphone jacks, as you're right, most don't, but then again, what's the point of connecting one of those to your car? That's the point of this particular thread remember? Car connection?
I don't own an iPhone or an iPod Touch and never planned to, but I do own a Pre, and when I want to use it in my car I plug the stereo cable from my tape deck into the headphone jack and put it on the touchstone in my car. The phone's mic is in speaker mode when the 3.5mm jack is connected to something, so I just talk normally and the sound comes out of my speakers. This is not rocket science people. My best friend does the same with his Droid and used to do it with his iPhone 3G as well.
The iPhone may have proprietary car adapters, but try streaming Pandora while using its GPS and see how far you get...
HTC is making all their Android phones have a 3.5mm stereo jack starting with the HTC Hero from mid-2009. The Droid and Eris have a headphone jack. The Pre and Pixi have headphone jacks, All blackberries have had headphone jacks for a few years now, I'm pretty sure every major WinMo phone from the past 2 years has a headphone jack... I could continue but it'd just be redundant.
It's one thing to say that normal phones don't have headphone jacks, as you're right, most don't, but then again, what's the point of connecting one of those to your car? That's the point of this particular thread remember? Car connection?
I don't own an iPhone or an iPod Touch and never planned to, but I do own a Pre, and when I want to use it in my car I plug the stereo cable from my tape deck into the headphone jack and put it on the touchstone in my car. The phone's mic is in speaker mode when the 3.5mm jack is connected to something, so I just talk normally and the sound comes out of my speakers. This is not rocket science people. My best friend does the same with his Droid and used to do it with his iPhone 3G as well.
The iPhone may have proprietary car adapters, but try streaming Pandora while using its GPS and see how far you get...
CommentRe:Googles-to-Apples Comparison (Score 1)445
Umm, what the hell are you talking about? Aux in jacks connect using a male-to-male stereo cable to any stereo jack (stereo jacks = headphone jack). What current gen smartphone do you know of that lacks a basic headphone jack?
CommentRe:Googles-to-Apples Comparison (Score 2, Insightful)445
It's called an aux in jack, and many more new cars have them than IPod docks. On older cars you can even get a stereo to tape converter to give that aging tape deck some usefulness. No one's going to embrace the iPhone because of their proprietary hardware interface. That'll only screw over consumers who inevitably decide to switch.
Apple will lose this fight because they made 3 big mistakes:
Apple will lose this fight because they made 3 big mistakes:
- Alienating the homebrew communities by forcing them to do things like jailbreaking (these communities are rife with potential developers which will often willingly switch to more open platforms)
- Releasing only 1 phone per generation and forcing a "one size fits all" mentality on people who want different things from their phone
- Locking themselves into a horrible carrier for years on a network which was already crappy before the iPhone crushed it
As it stands, Android will be capable of gaining a lot of ground in the coming year and dare I say even be dominant in 12 months time as contracts expire. Hell, if Palm can pull some decent hardware out of their asses for their nice new OS, they might even finally be able to gain some ground too.
CommentRe:Wait for it... (Score 4, Insightful)195
Save your beer money, because if you don't have this, you will be a social outcast.
I'd rather be a social outcast than someone so desperate for the approval of others that they'll buy a gadget just for the status it bestows.
CommentRe:This has been an issue for quite awhile. (Score 2, Funny)420
But hey, I guess you're too ignorant to think maybe the sheer amount of skyscrapers and concrete in NY would be one major cause of insufficient ability to handle calls.
Really? Cause as a NYC resident, my Sprint service works just fine all over the city. I've never dropped a call here when above ground. Neither has my best friend on Verizon (we have the Pre and Droid, respectively). The latter actually switched back to Verizon only a month ago and ditched his iPhone because he couldn't take the crappy service he was getting with AT&T. This is basically an issue with AT&T not having enough towers and repeaters in the city to handle the traffic.
PS - As a Jew, I find the accusations of some of the posts above outlandish. I mean, they've never mentioned the NSA wiretapping thing at our Jew meetings... only the mind control
