* Posts by jarjarbinks

34 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2011

Motorola to kick off comeback with US-made Moto X

jarjarbinks

Bigger screen and more horses

I agree with another poster, if any company could come back it would be Motorola. They have had a few good devices in the past.

That said, in order to put a dent into Samsung, they need to bring out a few devices with HD screens, at least one with a 5" or so screen and perhaps one with a 4" screen or so. Quad core cpus, 2GB to 4GB ram (despite nobody really needing that much memory on a phone), removable battery, SD card slot, extra long battery, all the bells and whistels, at least a 10MP camera (but preferrably one with low light and better lens), and a solid build quality.

I don't mind the cheaper Samsung build quality as I, like pretty much everyone, puts a case around it which thickens it a bit and makes it less likely to get damaged anyway. But a metal case with good styling will be required for them to compete with the likes of Sammy and Crapple.

NASA chief: Earth is DOOMED if we spot a big asteroid at short notice

jarjarbinks
WTF?

So are we safe from the big ones for a long while?

Since they are tracking 90% of 1 mile+ sized asteroids... other than the 10% we're not sure about yet.. is there any in the nexty sa 100 years that are going to impact us?

I agree with a previous post, Leftwinger wrote about how there are plenty of countries, that if pooled together, could easily mass billions right now with minimal impact on their budgets. Shoot, I read that 212 more people made it to the billionaire list in 2012. If I had a 100 million, I'd like to donate 1 million to help. With 1000's of people earning that kind of money if not way more, why not put out some sort of tax writeoff to fund this project? I mean, think about it.. next to some sort of crazy disease, nucelar war.. there really isn't anything else that we know of that would wipe use out so quickly and easily. Why is it those in power always seem to not give a crap about anything well..frankly, of utmost importance to the existence of.. us? Do they have some super secret space ship they get to live in if the world is about to end so they don't care? I don't understand how something of such importance can be overlooked for the sake of money.. with which they could easily get 100x the needed amount to get this going in the next couple of years, not 20+.

Here's the $4.99 utility that might just have saved Windows 8

jarjarbinks
WTF?

Brilliant strategy actually

I am confused by so many articles and slams against Windows 8. I am a hardcore android smartphone and linux guy, but use Windows for some things, like games and audio/video stuff. I took advantage of the $40 upgrade price and updated a few computers, and frankly, it works/runs almost like Windows 7 with the UI overhaul. For anyone that's dealth with a fairly new phone or tablet, the new UI is not that hard to get used to. It's different, yes, but it's easy enough to work with for the most part.

What throws me off is all the bashing of Windows trying to throw apps in our face. I think that's the best thing they've done with this. They have the PC/laptop market owned for the most part, they have the console gaming market pretty solid (shared with Sony of course.. Wii U I don't count anymore), and they now have these tablets and phones. Sadly their surface tablets, as cool as they are, are too overpriced for the tablet market, even though they are trying to bridge the tablet and laptop market with them. BUT.. as far as providing a means for developers to provide apps to the desktop, laptop, tablet, phone and xbox.. all in the same interface? Why the heck wouldn't that make sense? It makes total sense for developers..they can now write apps that work on every type of device out there that MS provides for, and not have to write special code for each platform. Sure.. specific things like big PC games can't be written for the tablet/phone as well, but for useful apps and simple games like we have on android and apple.. makes sense completely.

Apple to live-stream Tuesday's 'a little more' event

jarjarbinks

A Little More is right...

"A little more" is exactly what this is. It's hardly anything. It's a little smaller, a lot less resolution, less cpu, less memory, and is still too expensive to be competitive to the 7" $200 or so tablets. Why not just spend $100 more and get the faster/better device for 2" bigger screen?

Of ALL the companies in the world that COULD rock the boat on this device, Apple with it's huge cash flow should have brought it out at a loss to take market share. They are making such high profit margins on their phones and tablets.. why not rock the boat, and sell it for $200. It would fly off the shelves at that price and apple would continue to take market share.

Frankly, as a google/android fan, I am really happy they brought it out for this price.. because I don't think it will slow down the momentum of the $200 tablets much at all. The Nexus 7 is a much meatier beast than this ipad mini.. more processor, graphics, better screen and resolution. The only benefit, if you can call it that given how good Android 4.1 is, is the iOS eco-system. I personally don't find it any better except for the audio apps.. apps like drum/mpc/synths are much smoother on apple.. otherwise any app on apple is pretty much duplicated 10x over on android.

iPhone 5: skinny li'l fella with better display, camera, software

jarjarbinks

Re: That's all?

How long do you think it will take the tech people to compare performance when a new phone its the street... especially in 2012? My S3 had graphs up showing how fast it was before it was released. The cpus are built and tested long before they make it to market, and since there is no other competing ios/hardware to compare the same app on, comparing the same game or program on an android vs apple is not going to work either. The only thing that works is the same set of hardware benchmarks, like some that have already surfaced showing the differences in performance. Look around, if you read the reg and can figure out how to respond.. I am sure you'll put on your big boy britches and dig up an article or two that talk about the internals of the cpus, their performance, etc.

jarjarbinks

That's all?

I am trying to decide if this is a bigger bump up from 4S or if the 4S was a bigger bump from the 4. I thought apple would have brought something to trump the competition, not something actually less. I love the apple products, but this is yet another minor bump in updates over the 4S, the biggest probably being having 4G, but in the US (and elsewhere?) with ridiculous 2GB limits on data use per month, you can't even really enjoy 4G for anything but emails and minor picture posts.

We'll have to wait a few hours or maybe even days until we see comparisons with images from the camera compared to the S3 or HTC One X or other android phones, but I don't suspect it will be that much better in any scenario.

As for performance, the new cpu is comparable, if not a bit less than the US S3/HTC capabilities, and not nearly as good as the quad-cores out there. The design is still the same too.. same dated design as before.. little slimmer and lighter, big deal. Add a case to protect all that glass it has and it's the same thickness as any other phone with a case. I don't understand all this need to make the phone thinner and thinner. If anything that worries me the tech inside has less room to stay cool and may present problems later on.

Siri.. meh.. big deal. Their own mapping solution.. well they got more money than God so why not spend a little on doing your own solution to cut your competitors product from your phone.

No doubt the apple fans will be out in droves to keep up their zombie appearances over a new apple product just to say they got it. It will be curious to see if they can sell 20 million in a week like Samsung did for the S3.

I sure hope HTC's lawsuit holds up and bans the iPhone 5 from US for a while.. fair is fair. But being a US company (even though 95% of their employees/work is done outside of US..way to go Apple) it will probably not get the same instant-ban that Samsung got for their devices.. which obviously points out how unfair and badly broken the system is.

New MPEG format paves the way for UHDTV

jarjarbinks

US customers won't be able to use this for 20+ years

As some said.. 25 to 50mbps+ for one channel.. given the ridiculous state of internet speeds in the US and the astronomical prices we pay for a fraction of the bandwidth as most other countries, we're a looong way off from having the bandwidth to handle one channel like this. I believe Japan, South Korea, most of Europe, Australia and probably many third world starving nations will be able to handle these speeds far sooner than the US given all the crap the cable companies do to prevent any sort of decent internet speed. Thanks to all the MPAA (and others) and piracy, the US is in such shambles with regards to internet speed each person will have to pay for their own direct fiber to the house. I am betting on true 4G, or possibly even 5G speeds surpassing land speeds in a few years, although that's not much better.. given the unbelievable restrictions of 2GB per month all the carriers are putting on, it's pointless to even get a device with 4G or 5G.. who wants to run out of bandwidth after an hour of HD. I don't understand how the country that invented a lot of this stuff is by far one of the most backward/behind with allowing the customers to actually enjoy it. $200 a month (USD) for a 20Mbps connection, my 4G on my phone is faster most of the time (I am thankfully grandfathered in to the last "unlimited" plan until Verizon decides to stop that supposedly sometime soon, going back on their word as well). A friend of mine in Japan pays the equivalent of $22 a month for a 100mbps to the house with unlimited bandwidth... South Korea is cheaper I think I read.

Besides all that crap, it's going to be years before the standard is finalized and put into place.. 2014 is when they may come to a rough idea of the final spec.. a good couple years after that before we see it implemented and start being used, and mind you, besides bandwidth issues, you have CPU issues. Present day PCs might be fast enough if the encoder/decoder were mulit-threaded and used all the cores. What they need to do is put a simple chip like they do on blurays or what not that decode movies, into computers so it's separate from the main cpu/gpu, but that probably won't happen.

Interesting no mention of the audio format.. 4K/8K is supposed to usher in the 22.2 surround sound format as well. 4K is what most digital movies are shot on.. 8K is typically for IMAX (which is actually usually 5K or so). 22.2 surround is just nuts.. speakers below you, above you, to the sides, back, several in the front. Not sure any home could accommodate the 22.2 spec short of building a custom home theater room. I just finally put my 7.1 together and it sounds really good, can't imagine how much better 22 speakers is going to make it short of very few movie scenes where something goes under me and I can pin point the pan of the sound as it goes under me.

Samsung tells Apple: Quit your 'frivolous' whining over court doc leak

jarjarbinks

Maybe this case will finally cause a change in the patent system

If anything, I hope that the US patent system is updated a bit after this case is settled, regardless who wins..but especially if Samsung wins which they should by a landslide given the suit. I think both apple and android devices are very good..but the approach apple decided to take with their mountains of money is shameful. They clearly aren't losing money in the market.. so why they are trying to thwart every competitor while they continue to make massive profits is ridiculous. Stop spending billions on lawsuits and put that money into more products. Apple has done us a great service by bringing some very innovative tech to the market and waking up the tech giants before it. Now that we have some really kick ass technology in our hands and around us, keep on bringing cool gadgets and stuff to the market. I am betting on Apple to bring forth Thunderbolt and NFC to the masses.. since it seems they tend to really get the masses to accept what they endorse on their products. Just wish all this crap of rounded designs and the way someone swipes their finger being protected and nobody else can use it would stop already and lets see new innovations!

Apple extends tablet market lead

jarjarbinks

Re: iPad's sell well

Not sure I understand.. are you saying that android tablets don't sell well.. and if so.. is it because they don't do what the majority want them to? Last I checked my Transformer and Nexus 7 were easier to do things on than my wife's ipad. In the case that we had the same app on the two devices.. it was near identical in how it operated. As far as I know, ipad/iphone.. the only way to do anything it to launch an application. How is that any different than an application being launched on any android device? If the app does the same thing, then what's the difference?

jarjarbinks

Nexus 7, Kindle Fire 2, Asus 7".. android is just getting started

Fact of the matter is, the only thing that is going to save Apple now is if they come out with a 7" tablet. Having a 10" and 7", and the 4.8" S3.. the 7" is the sweet spot of devices. It fits in the hand just enough, big enough screen to be used for everything except perhaps a long email (assuming you have a bluetooth keyboard to type it in with), and the price is right.. at least for anything other than apple. The Nexus 7 is a beast.. the Android 4.1 OS is about as good as it gets, easily surpassing IOS5.. it's easy to use, still offers all the freedom of android (albeit in a better layout than previous versions if only slightly), and the hardware is the best on the market. I am sure Kindle Fire 2 will be something similar in hardware, and it's already done tremendous. The Samsung 7" Tab is good too, but not enough of an update to match the Nexus 7 to be a contender. Asus 7" will be very similar to nexus 7 for obvious reasons and should do pretty well too.

It's inevitable that apple will eventually fall into the same place they do with computers.. they have premium prices for products that aren't any better and typically subpar to much cheaper alternatives, but their name and style keeps them highly sought after by a select few. Right now, they are still riding (but diminishing) their iphone/ipad wave.. it took a couple years but like in the computer world, the competition has caught up and surpassed their offerings for more affordable prices.

Thus.. Apple's only chance of staying dominant is to offer a 7" or so tablet.

Beak explodes at Samsung's evidence leak in Apple patent spat

jarjarbinks

Why are apple products not banned too?

Like some others said, I am confused as to why Apple products are not banned while the suit Samsung has brought against them is handled? I am an American and generally would stand up for American companies as I would like to see our country/economy bounce back from the disaster the past few years... but that said, I am a believer in fairness.. and thus far I haven't seen much fairness applied to Samsung. I don't have the time to read the pages and pages of documents surrounding the various patents and what they actually mean, but from the few articles regarding all these suits, it seems as if Samsung owns a patent (or patents) that dictate how phones can access the internet.. (is it 3G/4g, wifi, all of the above if anyone knows)? That said.. if Samsung is now suing apple over this, why are apple's devices not banned until the case is resolved... that seems only fair?

This bond that apple had to put up doesn't come close to covering the amount Samsung will lose if they should actually win the case. The Nexus Galaxy is one of the best phones on the market now and being banned not only stops the sales, but tarnishes their reputation which you can't put a dollar amount on.

Many have said our patent system is messed up.. agreed.. it was established LONG before technology came along and it needs a serious overhual which sadly will never happen. The same could be said for our court system.. as many said..if this F700 is identified by apple.. why can't the evidence Samsung tried to admit be used as a counter to that? Not one person can agree that it's fair to Samsung that just because they dug it up late (or are playing some game with it..whatever it may be) that it should be blocked. There is no reason why the trial couldn't be put on hold for a few days or longer if need be to allow Apple time to do something with this evidence. What it sounds like to me is Koh knows it could turn the odds to Samsung's favor and/or Apple knows this and are abusing the obviously bad US court system rules to block it.

This is why you read about all these people being put to death who later are found innocent. Ooops.. you mean there was evidence that could have proven they were innocent.. nope..sorry.. admitted too late.. this dude is going to fry!

It's unbelievable that this sort of thing happens.. where the hell is our morals, our human compassion for being fair, instead of about defeating the other side for money or whatever it may be. I for one would NOT want to win a race if evidence showed up that I broke a rule or cheated or that there was an error in some way that proved I did not win. I would want to win fairly and would gladly give up my win title in the name of fairness. It's the moral and honorable thing to do. Despite this.. I know it's not how companies work.. it's all about money, bottom line, profits, etc.. not fairness.

Apple iPad fondlers are about to enter a THIRD DIMENSION

jarjarbinks

Once again patent office fails

This is just yet another example of the patent office allowing a patent through that is too abstract and could cover everything including Xbox Kinect. I don't understand how these sorts of patents, much like software patents are allowed. They completely prevent innovation when they are so vague.. unless of course the 35 page document details a very narrow specific use of this patent?

It seems what apple (and some other companies) are doing is trying to find ways to patent things that thus far are just taken for granted that they would not otherwise be patentable. The whole rounded slab thing and suing Samsung, for example is mind boggling. Yes I know there is more to it, but despite that I agree the Samsung tablet looks very similar..it's not the same thing.. its not a copy.. they designed it similar but it's different hardware, different software, and yet it's banned.

Samsung asks for US Galaxy Nexus ban to be lifted pending appeal

jarjarbinks

Predictive text.. didn't google bring that out first?

One of the patents is about predicting text as you type. Now maybe I missed something, but long before apple iphone.. at the early stages of web 2.0, google did some amazing things that made them popular. Besides a super easy search engine, they were the first to bring the ability to predict text as you typed in the search window. I don't recall seeing that by apple back then.. or anyone. I could be wrong.. if I am correct me.

Another patent is saying swiping an image to unlock the phone. How the hell is this even patentable? If it is, then pressing a button to unlock a phone can be too. They are going to be patenting gyro motions next.. the S3 allows you to turn it upside down to turn down the volume.. can Samsung now patent that so that anyone turning a phone upside down for some sort of action can be sued?

The problem is that apple is exploiting a very bad patent system. We developers said this back in the early 90's when the XOR bit-blit patent was being used to cause every game at the time to be sued or pay royalties for using a method of making a sprite disappear and reappear to show motion. A function of math was patented in that case.

I honestly don't know what should or should not be patentable now. I think as some have said, the patent system is LONG overdue to catch up with technology. If you build a piece of hardware that others can use.. you can patent it and others can license it. If you build a service that uses multiple devices, software, etc.. and call it "cloud" you can NOT patent that (or should not be able to). I think patents on single items of physical hardware make sense. But methods for using multiple pieces of hardware or methods for using various software features to perform an operation.. how the hell does it make sense to patent that.

Someone said it bets.. patents really are a way to monopolize something. All that matters is who got there first. Which is crap.

jarjarbinks

Re: Apple PR done well.

@Chris19 Samsung did NOT pursue these patents of theirs until apple sued them. Like google, Samsung wasn't bent like hell on suing everyone for every patent they own. They may sue a few that are clearly violating.. but not to the extent that they are now. Apple started this bullshit war of lawsuits. I am seeing WAY more comments lately about people fed up with apple's bullying and anti-competitiveness, switching to android or windows phones.. and rightfully so.

Let's be clear.. apple makes amazing products. I like apple products. I can not stand the company however because of what they are doing..therefore, I, like millions of others world wide, are now going to no longer buy apple products. I do not want apple to fold though.they push the envelope and bring great things to the market. It encourages the likes of google, samsung and many others to keep on bringing new ideas out too. The problem is.. apple is greedy..they charge $500 for what Samsun/Asus/others figured out how to do for $150. Apple has 4x more money than the next tech company.. so why not lower their prices to $200 and stun the market? They would STILL break even, maybe even lose a little but they would own a lot more of the market. A year ago it was said apple's ipad can't be touched. A year later, 30%+ are android tablets and growing. By 2014, Android tablets will be > 50% of the market, with apple falling to about 32% or so (forget the exact predictions). Part of that reason is apple has always been..and will always be.. about high-end luxury. Their mac computers are the same way. Not one person can show me how the mac hardware is better than any other PC for 1/3 the price. OSX the operating system may be superior, but the hardware is no different..its all the same stuff we can buy off the shelf for cheap. All of their products are this way.. sold for way more than they need to be or are worth, and just like when people buy Mercedes and BMW for the name..not because the car is any better... the same goes for apple. Although in this case, apple has somehow brought out a herd of zombies that buy it only because their friends buy it and its the "cool" thing to own.

Second win for Apple as Galaxy Nexus sales banned in US

jarjarbinks

Someone explain to me how the Nexus looks anything like the iphone?

I am really confused.. while I can't stand Apple at all any more for the ongoing ridiculous lawsuits.. I can *almost* accept the Tablet 10.1" cause it does look very close to the ipad. But the Galaxy Nexus does NOT look like the iphone at all. In fact, there are a LOT more phones that look almost identical to the iphone before the Galaxy Nexus does. I don't understand how a 16:9 4.65" screen size device with a countoured body can be considered identical in appearns to the much smaller/less curvy iphone.

So please.. can someone for the love of all that is Holy explain how the hell this is possible? Let's put all fanbois aside (both sides) and be fair and honest. Yes, the Samsung Tablet 10.1" looks very close to an ipad. But the Nexus Galaxy.. come on? Are they going to ban the S2 and S3 now too? What about the hundreds of other manufacturers.. I mean.. why can they ban one phone from one company here right now and it doesnt hold up anywhere else for any other manufacturer? Shoot, Samsungs Fascinate looks FAR more like the iphone than the Nexus does.

Apple wins US ban on Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1

jarjarbinks

Re: A ban based on a design patent??

@ToadWarrior,

Explain to me then why Apple tried to get the Samsung Galaxy S3 banned with this same suit and when it got tossed out, filed it again in a separate suit? What exactly is the Samsung Galaxy S3 infringing upon of Apple's that they filed a suit to get it banned? I do agree that the Tablet 10.1 and ONLY the table 10.1 looks very close to an ipad. But I am baffled as to all the other lawsuits apple keeps filing. They recently got shut down against Motorola in Chicago trying to ban them from the US too, and their tablet doesn't look nearly as close. Why? It's ridiculous, period. There is protecting a specific innovation, then there is simply trying to stop all competition to hoard as much of the market as you possibly can before they won't be able to get a lawsuit seen.. they are purely trying to gain as much market share as they can because Android crushed htem in the phone arena, and has already gone from 2% to 27% of the tablet market in one year and despite all the fanbois saying android tablets won't come close to catching up to ipad, it's going to happen next year when they overtake the market with about 52% or so of the tablet market. With the new google 7" tablet for $200, Kindle Fire, and others coming out at < 1/2 the cheapest ipad price with more capabilities, Apple doesn't stand a chance in slowing down the momentum. So rather than continuing the ridiculous lawsuits that are pissing more people off and helping them lose business, they should maybe do like google, microsoft, etc..and use all that money for better purposes, like donating some to good causes, venturing into new areas (apple tv for example) and keep on doing what they were (and to lesser degree still are) good at.. innovating! I don't want apple to go away..they come out with some really good tech and the world swarms it.. for example, I am hoping that Thunderbolt (which is really an Intel tech, but Apple is the first pushing it hard) takes off. It's 2x faster than USB3.

Google unveils Nexus 7 tablet, Android 4.1 and Nexus Q

jarjarbinks

Re: Can't buy one

It is almost never because they don't want to or they want to make other regions wait. It usually has to do with government laws with imports, US export restrictions, etc. If they just got this thing done and want to release it, they likely don't have the exportable one ready yet. If they waited a few months to announce it, they may have been able to ship them all over and spent the few months getting all that in place. It will make it's way to other countries fairly soon, but companies that do sell things world wide typically don't hold back on purpose. That's loss revenue for them.

Apple, Samsung snatch smartphone biz booty

jarjarbinks

How are Motorola and HTC not mentioned?

I am a bit baffled how HTC and Motorola are not mentioned? They sell a ton of phones too, and surely make up more of the market than Nokia, Sony and others? At the very least they should be mentioned in here somewhere.

Testicle-boiling new iPad ignites fanboi fury

jarjarbinks

Honestly this is a stupid argument

I am anti-apple, pro-android, but I am fair for both sides. I always tell people who see me rant about how much I can't stand apple, that their devices are fantastic, it's the company and their crappy business antics and trying to use their immense money to sue all competition instead of win on the merit of their products. Their products are some of the best out there. I prefer android, for many reasons. This, however, seems like an article to try to degrade ipad 3's because of some heat. Big deal. They'll make a sleeve that absorbs it, or a software fix to variably control the cpu/gpu, etc. I am all for slamming apple products (vs android) when fanbois claim that apple will win, android will die, etc. But to merely try to point out a minor issue as potentially a major reason ipad 3s suck.. lame.

Let's battle on the overall features, functionality, and usefulness of a product. The ipad 3 kicks ass, it works great, the screen is (for now) the best on the market, even compared to laptops (given it's 10" size and very few laptops having much higher than 1080p screens now, usually less).

Think of the desktop gaming market.. they put water coolers on their cpus (even I do) Why? To overclock them so they can run faster. The water cooler's will keep a normal cpu very cool, but as soon as you overclock them, they are running hot again. Hot is ok. Too hot is bad. Cpus can easily handle 120 degree heat for periods of time. The ipad 3 heat is not going to be an issue for the internals. So really it's only purpose of being sought out to make apple look bad is because of a minor discomfort to end users. Silicon sleeve or some sort of case solves the problem.

Now.. about Android tablets. For all those apple fanboi/android haters.. you're all wrong about nothing compares. That's just being pure biased, so much hatred you can't see past anything apple and thus you are unfairly comparing two products. That's what children do. If you are a child, you are forgiven. If you are a teen+ or worse, and adult.. grow up a bit. Be fair. There are many tablets for android that have similar specs..except for the screen (for now), and some that are beefier. The Transformer Prime being the best candidate right now. The quad-core (5 cores really..fifth core is used to run when the 4 main cpus don't need to be used..for someting like running a single app to read a book), and the gpu is a beast. The bump in gpu on the ipad 3 does NOT give it a much faster graphics..it's primarily absorbed by having to push 4x as many pixels on the new screen. So while the ipad 3 is a bit faster than the ipad2, it's not nearly as fast as the prime is. Does it matter? I think not. The ipad 3 with its gorgeous screen and runs smooth enough to be used as it's intended..as an incredible display tablet, which will be great for photographers and video work in the field, showing pictures/videos to clients, watching movies, etc.. among other things. Still, you can't be childish and knock the existence of the quad-core cpus being put out for android tablets. As well, Android 4 OS is quite good. To have any android tablet (or phone) act like an iphone, it's as simple as pressing the "drawer" button. Now, you have a UI full of buttons that make it work just like the ipad/iphone. So the argument that ipad/iphone is so much easier.. just doesn't hold merit. The android devices have more capabilities and offer more customizations.. but you don't have to use it that way. I should make a video about this lol.

Fragmentation bomb wounds Android in developer war

jarjarbinks

Re: Here we go...

I agree that it's difficult to design for all screen sizes. Any company that has a design time draw up a design for one size and then assumes it should work on all flavors did not do their homework. How you go off and NOT know that the target phone (android) has different sizes to be concerned with.. I would not want to buy the app from that company.

If they are targeting the 800x480 screen size, which is the majority of phones on the market these days, then they should either also design a subset for smaller screen size, possibly as a separate app with meta info that allows the market to only show the small screen size app to phones with small screens, or at least draw up the UI for different screen sizes and let the developers build the app to accommodate it. The app can detect the screen size and adjust accordingly.. it's a little more code, but not difficult.

jarjarbinks

Re: hah hah hah

Why anyone would agree with this moron is beyond me. So what you're saying is you want apple to be the only thing out there.. no competition? Watch how fast apple goes from their minor yearly updates now to something every 3+ years when they have nothing pushing them to be better.

copy? ROFL.. as many already said, apple copied too, on many occasions. Copying is a form of flattery is it not? Besides, there are only so many ways you can make a touch screen do something. So if they had triangular icons that required a hard touch then a swipe to execute, would that make you happy? Oh wait.. apple apparently invented swipe too.. so that's copying as well. I got it.. all android devices should have cameras that know exactly what your looking at..then you blink.. and it runs. MS phones will need to do something else..they already have Kinect technology.. so perhaps they need to invent the brain receiver..you think it, and their phones will execute the app. Now that is fair right? That way nobody copied poor apple.. the company that after years of massive profits is finally giving a little bit back to the stock holders and continues to waste billions on trying to stop competition rather than compete fairly. Yah..that's the company I want to give my money to.

jarjarbinks

Re: Statistics

Haha..I thought this very same thing! However, 280,000 devs is about 5% of the total android developer community. There are millions of android developers (or wannabe's anyway) trying to break in to the market. Makes me wonder if this is some ploy by an apple employee to make android look bad..but then my long post about why this fragmentation is happening would counter this sentence. ;)

jarjarbinks

Google, device manufacturers and developers are all the problem

It's quite simple really. Android, the platform is not fragmented. You can write an android app that will run, with no problems, on every phone out there (or just about) from those of 2+ years ago to the latest. But.. and this leads to my title.. Google did a piss poor job teaching developers about all the hints needed for the market to make sure that an app only shows up for a phone it will work on. More so, Google failed miserably about making sure every manufacturer provides solid drivers for their devices AND updates quickly. If Google would have required that all manufacturers have to update their devices to the latest within say 6 months time, we'd have FAR less fragmentation. However, it's not fair to compare apple's devices (and their owners) to android devices (and their owners). Two totally different mind sets. The millions buying apple phones/tablets have the money to do so (most anyway) and are willing to upgrade every freaking year to the latest, even when it's a fraction of a minor update like iPhone 4s or ipad 3 is. You see it in the news, you read about it.. millions of apple devotees buy the latest each and every year. The android device owners mostly have the mind set of how long they can get updates to extend the life of their device. They typically fall in to the cheaper crowd (but not always) given all the free android phones you can get.

Also, the developers.. as an android developer, I can tell you that you can't just know Java and expect to write android apps. There are a lot of little things that make the android app work on a variety of devices that if you do NOT learn and use, you WILL add to the fragmentation problem. And that, (along with Google's miserable failure of teaching developers early on) is why we have fragmentation. Too many developers are school kids, teenagers that think they can write the next great game or app, and put their app out in a few weeks, a month, without rigorous testing, without setting proper hints so the market can limit what devices will find it on the market. The underlying android platform works, on all devices the same way.

The last fault should go to the manufacturers. Something most users (and probably readers) don't know is that each device has their own underlying hardware. While a lot is nVidia, Qualcom, and the likes, each manufacturer combines different pieces to try to one-up the other guys and provide a phone that will sell. But they are responsible for writing a lot of the device drivers that connect the hardware of the phone to the underlying Android platform. This is why you'll read about some phones just crashing when you turn on the camera, or something else happens like this. As I said above, their lack of updating quickly.. Android 4 has been out for 4 months now.. there are tons of phones capable of running it easily, yet they aren't upgraded? Why? If the majority of the phones the past 6 months that can easily run Android 4 all upgraded relatively quickly so that Android 4 was the dominant OS now.. there would be a lot less fragmentation and a lot more interest in developers supporting Android 4 immediately. But that doesn't happen. Google has no policy to force manufacturers to do so, so they end of life many phones that are plenty capable, so that you'll buy new ones. Case in point, my original moto droid from Nov of 2009 is running a hack version of Android 4. It runs fine. It works great. Why did they EOL the phone if it can run it? Because they want you to buy a phone every year like apple people do.. but sadly.. as I said above..the majority mindset of android owners is NOT to buy a new phone every year. The manufacturers aren't seeing it though.

So, I am actually now undecided on who will survive this war. I love google/android, I write Java and for Android too, I can't stand the language and strictness of apple, but with all the issues that STILL cause us developers problems (for example, google still has not given us a solid audio capability to write cool audio programs like drum machines and music production apps that you can find on apple) along with this fragmentation, honestly, I am starting to look to Microsoft. I can't believe I am saying this, but if google does NOT address this, which I am pretty sure they wont since they only care about advertising revenue, I would not be shocked if in two years time, Microsoft surpasses google and google becomes the RIM of the market. They need to wake up now.. or they will lose this race.

jarjarbinks

Re: so

You're spot on wize.. the problem is in the mindset of all the noob android developers.. and I mean that sincerely.. there are sooo many developers that know Java now.. it being the #1 "single" development language in use world wide..that everybody thinks they can just jump in and build an android app. They find that it's not as easy as just knowing java, there is a lot to writing a good android app. Like you said, they need to write an app for the lowest common denominator, which right now should be Android 2.2 or probably 2.3 by now. Depending on the app, probe for features. The Android Market does a good job of hiding apps that won't work with your phone..but here is the kicker.. the Market app ONLY works if the developer provides the info needed for it to work. If a developer doesn't put in all the "hints" that the market can use to only show apps for phones it will work on, then everyone gets the app, complains it doesn't work with their phone, the app gets poorly rated.. and on and on it goes. And you know what the developer does? "See..it's due to fragmentation..I have to support all these different phones". Nope. Sadly, Google has done a ridiculously bad job of teaching android developers about these subtle but needed hints. So most developers, especially the noob "I can write android cause I know java" developers that don't take the time to really learn the platform.

Intel runs three Ivy Bridge fabs ragged for April blast off

jarjarbinks

Can we build more cpu cores and toss the crappy video out?

I for one am not getting this whole everything on a chip design. At least for the desktop cpus. Why can't they make a mobile cpu with graphics, and put more cores, 8, 16 or more on the desktop cpu version and leave out all the graphics crap? It's WAY slower than dedicated cards anyway. It's the same stupid morons that think TVs with 3D and network and all that crap is worth a few hundred more. Give me a better picture, no frills, any day. I'll use an external device, flash/usb stick, HDMI out from my tablet, phone, laptop, whatever for download content and web browsing. I hate all this extra crap we now have to have in our tvs. 3D is so badly done by almost every movie anyway.. especially all these cheap 2D shot movies that then post-convert to 3D, which is no where near as good. 3D won't work until we have a completely 3D hologram movie theater where I can turn around and see what's behind me in the movie... in fact.. toss the whole idea out until we have holodecks and can interact. Or at least allow us to set up a couple Kinects with 4 projectors that can cover a room full of walls with video and detect our movements and put us in the middle of the movie or game. That's 3D. I've yet to see any movie, including Avatar, about the best one there is, that looks convincing to me. Hell, OLED at 4K resolution would be MUCH more convincing than 3D.. and like someone else said.. with current 1080p screens, you're only getting 1/2 the HD image in 3D.. why do I want to watch a degraded HD image with crappy 3D over a solid 2D.

When 3D brings a movie to us like 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound does to audio.. then we'll have something. I fell like current 3D is like the USA attempt at 4G.. not even close.

Samsung shifts 10 millionth Galaxy SII

jarjarbinks

Wait for the next Google Nexus phone...

The up coming Samsung Nexus Prime or whatever it will be is the one I am waiting for. Rumors have it at a 4.65" SuperAmoLED+ screen with 1280x800 resolution (720p natively), 1080P recording, dual 1.5Ghz cpus, NFC chip and Android 4.0 (or ICS.. not sure what version it will become) all in one package. The only downside is the 5MP camera, but supposedly it will have a much better image sensor to shoot really good pics and 1080p video. I'll take the 5MP over 8MP any day if it has better pictures.

Google's Moto move spells iPhone doom

jarjarbinks

Valid points

I agree with what you say here. It's a darn shame Apple, the largest company in the world now (or most profitable, richest?) has stopped to such anti-competitive crap to try to keep it's throne. I can't imagine how many lawyers are needed to roll through tens of thousands of patents. It sickens me though that they were able to actually stop Samsung based purely on that it looks similar to the ipad. It has different hardware, different screen, different OS.. but because it looks similar.. not even exactly..but similar, they won. I don't understand how that is possible. I wish someone could explain to me the specific points how Apple defeated Samsung in this case? As well, there are several other tablets including the Xoom that look very similar too.. so are all those automatically banned now too?

I too agree apple makes good products.. but because of their business practices, at least from what I've been reading and/or talking to people, more and more people are shunning apple. Not everyone of course.. but many that would be buying their products are. As a developer, I will not develop for iPhone, period. I don't like that I must buy a Mac, must pay $100, and then hope after potentially months of development using Objective-C of all languages, that apple likes my app enough to approve it. Then if they do, I have to hope they decide not to ban it for no apparent reason and if they do, just suck it up and live with it. It's pure crap. I don't want to support a company that acts like an 800 pound bully.

More so, I continue to see article after article about various tablets, how they are ok, but aren't near as good as an ipad. I have an Asus Transformer and I gotta say, this thing works. I also own an iPad (the last apple product I'll buy until they change their ways). It's a great product. But all the articles and posts that say how difficult Android 3 is.. I don't get it. My wife, my dad, my mom, my kids, have no problem at all using it. They turn it on, and touch an app to run it. Is it any different than an ipad? Well..yes.. it offers a lot more in some areas, like notifications, live widgets with real-time updates and such that you can make use of. Do you have to do these things? Nope. You can use an android tablet just like an ipad.. barring a few things (like netflix, hulu and skype). Android tablets have been out for what.. 4 months now, in one year from now let's see where things are with apps.

The last thing I'll say is all the banter about how hardware does not sell which is why iPhone 5 is rumored to be only a dual-core phone while quad-core phones are coming out on Android around the same time. I recall a war with Mhz (then Ghz) between AMD and Intel. AMD for a while was kicking Intel's butt in speed and price. When they switched to a non-Mhz naming scheme, they went down hill. People liked that Intel was 1Ghz, 1.5Ghz, 2Ghz, meanwhile AMD was not specifying speeds but a naming scheme that was "comparable" to the Intel chip speeds. These were every day customers that were not geeks, but just liked the idea of owning a 2Ghz cpu because it was "faster". Even if the AMD was cheaper and faster, it didn't come across that way. My point is, there is a lot of talk now that Apple is not releasing more powerful hardware than Android devices, that they don't need to..it's not about the hardware, it's about the experience. To some degree I agree with that.. but when more capable games and apps come out on Android because they are easier to code (Java is after all easier to work with than Objective-C and there are way more Java developers) and much more powerful devices coming soon so how long will an out dated ipad 2 (or ipad 3 if the rumors are true) last compared to quad core or more, with more ram and all the extras like SD, HDMI, USB and more?

There are always going to be fans of both products, and frankly, I wish all the "apple is best, google will die" and vice versa would stop. It's ridiculous. The only way Apple could win is to do what they are doing now with all the patent lawsuits, but these will probably take years to play out and by then Android will have proliferated far too much to just ban it completely. I'd much rather see innovation.. let them compete on features.. functionality.. design. I am really looking forward to NFC and Barometer sensors on my devices, something from what I can tell none of the apple devices will have, although rumors about iPhone 5 indicate NFC.. we'll see. But new APIs, new functionality.. that's what we need and we need it from both sides. Let's get back to making the devices really cool and "I can't wait for it." attitude instead of trying to use lawyers to completely stop or at the very minimum worry potential manufacturers like Samsung about using Android.

Samsung's lovely illegal tablet: Why no one wants to know

jarjarbinks

Plenty of apps for android tablets

Am I the only one that knows that there are 1000's of apps for Android tablets? Keep in mind that we've only had Android tablets for a few months now, and developers need time to modify apps that make sense on a tablet in the first place. Also, keep in mind that a lot of developers are waiting for the Android 4.0 OS that is due out around the same time iOS 5, as it will unify the phone and tablet app development.

That said, most apps I ran on iPad were iphone apps that had a 2x button to enlarge it. The same is happening on android tablets right now. Most apps will scale to fit the screen, but don't quite use it right. As many pointed out, ipad is 4:3 portrait, where as android started off with 16:9 or 16:10 landscape. I am a bit baffled at the OP comment about this.. every app I've ever ran in Android can rotate to portrait as well. Almost every app on our ipad, we have to rotate the ipad to landscape to make use (games, music apps, video, etc). Seems like Android has it right..most apps and games are going to be landscape, not portrait.

The great thing about Android.. WAY more developers. The market growth on the phone side outpaced iphone this past year and is pulling away. With almost 250K apps now on the phone side, it will close in on the apple market in another year or so. Also, with a large number of developers giving up on apple due to their ridiculous ways with pulling apps, not allowing apps, hi barrier to entry (buy a mac and pay another $100 to develop iphone apps), and their Objective-C language which is more difficult to work with than Java and native C, you're starting to see many first-run apps on android now, and then ported to iphone.

jarjarbinks

You got it right

Eugene has it right. Android is way ahead on the phone side now.. as are the number of developers writing apps for android over iphone now. Apple will ultimately fail for the same reason their computers never take more than a few % points of total ownership. They are a closed platform. They want nothing to do with sharing anything they do. They want it their way, only their way and don't give a crap about anyone else. They are the same way with their money. They only care that you're paying 3x more for an apple machine that has less capabilities than a PC.. so really you're paying for an inferior machine to use OSX. If they were smart, they'd sell OSX for all pcs and dominate Microsoft's mainstay. Everybody is doing EXACTLY the same thing they did when android phones first came out. Shouting off their mouths about how great iPad is, how bad android is... same was said for their phones and that didn't last long. With $300 and below tablets coming out soon, and much more powerful capable tablets than any ipad out right now, Android 4 which will greatly advance the android platform in many areas, it's only a matter of another year or two before android tablets surpass ipads.

I'll say this though, some how, apple has a LOT of friends in the judicial courts. They are beating down any competitor in many markets, and they know they can because they know our patent system is ridiculously flawed. So if there is anything Apple is winning at right now, it's having the money to hire enough lawyers to look through all the loopholes of the patent systems around the world to knock down any competition. What I don't understand is how the hell this is not considered anti-competitive by apple? Samsung's device does NOT look like nor does it function like an ipad to me, yet they are banned in 40+ countries. That's just unreal to me. But besides that, it just proves as many have said that apple is scared shitless right now. They got crushed on the phone side assuming it wouldn't happen, and now that they are making billions on ipads, they don't want to lose in that race either. It's too bad. If apple was a better company in how they treat developers, offered more fair values for their hardware, and stopped acting like a bully by battling every possible competitor, they'd get a lot more business. Most people I know in tech sectors can't stand them for exactly the thing they are doing.. trying to sue everyone for everything because it might compete.

Oracle's Java plan trapped in last century

jarjarbinks

You need to try JEE6 before you make this claim

Seriously, go learn JEE6... it's beyond easy, uses POJOs. EJB3.1 is so impressive now, and being able to build everything into a single .war file now is much nicer/easier too.

I have built a few JEE6 apps now, all using Pojos, with my entity beans being my pojos that I pass around. I will admit I don't need to work with transactions as I keep everything stateless all the way through with the "state" being stored in the database. I replaced JMS with REST as it's much easier and almost as robust for most things as JMS.. with the exception being guaranteed delivery.. but even that is not hard to make work right with the new JEE6 timer capabilities and async methods.

Only thing I would add is using Wicket. Wicket is the only framework I've found that truly allows a html/css expert do their work without having to know anything about java and where the html files are deployed.. simply understand the use of <wicket:id> and a couple other things, but can build complete web pages and then the wicket developer can add in all the dynamic code in Java and it's pretty easy to work with. It handles a number of things like state, session replication (or session state stored in database), various "hacks" like SQL hacks, has a large built in support for ajax, html components and more.

I will never get the "Ruby" kick. I tried ruby.. it was a disaster to me. It was more difficult to set up than Java even with classpath issues (which isn't hard if your a mid level Java engineer and actually learn the JVM, not just the language.. thus understand how it all fits together). Ruby the language to me just doesn't make sense. Java, C, Basic, Pascal.. are easy to read for the most part. I guess it's all the symbols and syntax of Ruby that I don't comprehend.

jarjarbinks

Agreed!

Thank you.. can't agree more. How is it that everyone bashes Java.. yet C/C++ have barely changed at all in 30+ years. They have some new changes coming up to C++ right now that are finally adding some new things to it, but the language itself has been almost identical since it's inception. Yet.. nobody bashes C or C++ for not evolving?

Sadly, a lot of people bash Java without realizing it's part of a bigger thing.. the JVM. The JVM allows for other languages as well, and they can all play nice together for the most part. So if Java the language is a "wee bit" behind the times..it's still got the biggest developer pool to find talent from in the world, it's got more libraries and open source behind it than any other language in the world, while c/c++ combined are "bigger" overall than Java, Java is used far more on the server side than both c and C++ combined. Since most applications these days are "in the cloud" (e.g. web apps deployed on servers) it stands to reason that Java is a large part of this. I don't see C and C++ being nearly as large on the server side as Java.. so for a language that is behind the times, it sure is amazing how many companies keep on building new libraries with it, using it for robust scalable applications and more. If you include the Android mobile side to things, it's even that much bigger with how fast Android is growing and how many developers are able to actually develop apps with some sort of ease compared to iOS apps.

jarjarbinks

Thank you and Amen

This is EXACTLY what I was thinking!! I don't understand anyone saying a language or JVM is not cloud friendly. It runs within an OS that runs inside of a cloud environment. IS the language and/or JVM supposed to be "cloud" aware.. somehow when it starts up be it a web app or console Java app, does it just look at the network, OS it runs on and from that determine it's part of a cloud and some how it does some new great stuff? This part of the article completely confused me. In most cases that I know of, cloud deployed java apps are running as web apps, inside a JEE container. There could be "agents".. self run console apps that might be services or script started.. but otherwise, they mostly run inside of JEE containers. I don't believe many, if any, java web apps are "aware" they run in a cloud. The container/server won't even know this.. there is no magic "cloud" formula. Cloud is basically physical servers turned into virtual servers on bigger/faster physical servers. That's it. Running in the cloud simply means your app is on some virtualized "pretend" computer. It's the same sort of network setup as a rack full of physical computers with the obvious differences of virtual networks and such.

I never get it when people use the "cloud" acronym for everything. Salesforce.com is a "cloud" deployed app. Well.. it's basically the same deployment, only instead of a single physical server for each JEE container, they use beefier multi-core servers with more memory, along with something like XEN or VMWare dividing up the cores and memory into virtualized machines, each getting their own "sandbox" chunk of processing and memory. That's it..that's the magic.

Let's try to understand what it means to be part of a cloud already and get beyond the use of this word as if it's the holy grail to deployments! It's just a more efficient way of using more powerful computers!

Oracle coughs up Java 7 release candidate

jarjarbinks

Huh?

Please elaborate on what is so bad about Java? Are you one of those few that come from languages like Ruby, Python, Groovy, Smalltalk and complain about how bad Java got it wrong? Most of the server side world is built on Java and JEE6 is about as easy as anything else out there. I can build robust front to back scalable enterprise class web applications in hours with JEE6 (and one extra.. Wicket). It's not a "prototype" either like many use Ruby or Python for. It's a fully scalable robust performance capable application that can scale to handle increasing loads without any issues at all.

I never understand the java bashers.. if you don't like it, go away. Use the language you find so much better and stick to it.

I am also confused because so many major companies have built their entire products around Java technology and continue to do so.. if other languages and their supportive libraries were so good, why don't more companies switch to them or begin with it? Having worked at startups that "tried" to use ruby because developers say it's so fast to build with.. only to find it sucks at scaling to large capacities without a ridiculous amount of resources, then switching to Java and seeing how much more support there is, how much more performance they can get, and how much of a magnitude larger talent pool they can select from to support it.. there is just no contest. Besides that, the language is fine. I find that the majority of developers that complain about it are too absorbed in "if it only had this capability..it would be so much better/easier". Get over it, or move on and don't look back.

Next-gen Xbox to debut at next year's E3

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Thumb Up

Specs of next gen Xbox...

I would suspect that the next gen console not due out for at least two years, but probably being planned and by early 2012 being built, would include at least an 8 core if not 16 core cpu of some sort.. probably the AMD chip. If the Trinity APU chipset includes their new Bulldozer 16-core chip and their advanced ATI DirectX 11 chip.. it would not be surprising to see something of that magnitude show up in the next console. Figure that they'll aim for the $400 to $700 range.. especially given the price of tablets and how many people are snapping those up for $500 or so a pop. I would suspect at least 2GB of RAM and a 1 TB or larger HD. No doubt they'll be using some variety of Windows 8 OS.. although maybe they'll stick with a Windows 7 as by then it's well supported/tested.