RyanBeesley

To get S-off you’ll need an Engineering boot loader. I don’t think I’ve seen one for any HTC device since the sapphire. This is largely because the Nexus One came with the ability to unlock the boot loader to install unofficial ROMs, but I wouldn’t count on seeing something like that soon for the One X.

No, I’m an elitist butthole. /s

Fair point about the features. I wonder though, how is CyanogenMod any different from other “fragmented” android versions. When the next version of Android is released, CM users still have to wait for it to be customized for their device. Does CM differ from other vendor releases? Does CM and other custom ROMs contribute to fragmentation in any meaningful way?

Are you suggesting that modern HDTVs are not true 1080p? I might have to disagree with you there.

The recipe is copyrighted or it it could be a trade secret. While both are forms of intellectual property protection, it cannot be a copyrighted trade secret. With a copyright, you are documenting what exactly goes into making your recipe, and demonstrating that someone else copied from your source, you might have legal recourse to go after that person for damages. A trade secret means that you intentionally do not copyright the recipe, and since it isn’t publicly disclosed, no one can base their recipe off yours. If however someone discovers your trade secret on their own, there is also nothing to prevent someone from distributing their own version of your recipe. When you think trade secret, think Coca-Cola.

Never mind. That’s what you said, wasn’t it.

On Ice Cream Sandwich, enable the encrypted file system. That won’t help encrypt an SD card,or anything on a FAT partition, but unless the phone is unlocked, I suspect thus would thwart the use of this tool. I’m not sure how this affects other applications like Titanium Backup.

The difference is that this other app will let you migrate settings from one launcher to another… I guess I failed to explain that in my initial post.

Not all devices have an IMEI number. IMEI only shows on GSM devices, so CDMA subscribers have an ESN (I think) instead, and WiFi only devices, like some tablets, don’t have either of those.

There is also a new app I’ve seen, although not used, that can back up the settings for most launchers, and allows you to port your widgets and shortcuts between launchers. You should be able to find it on Play, and it sounds like it would simplify that for you. Sorry, I don’t remember the name off hand.

That is supposed to be the purpose of the AndroidID. However when you flash a new ROM, sometimes you don’t get the same ID for the device. I believe it is generated the first time you connect your device to Google services, such as Play, Gmail, etc. I don’t believe there is anything that persists a unique ID beyond that. On some devices, you can read the serial number of the CPU on a device, but that doesn’t seem to work for all devices. The MAC address doesn’t to change either, but that Errolwon’t work when the device is in Flight Mode, so it isn’t always available.

Since I would likely run into this problem, as I go through a lot of devices myself, in addition to the numerous ROMs I flash, I’ll have to keep an eye on this.

You code to a common API for most things. If you want to add some nice 3D graphics, you can use DirectX. The thing about that, is that Windows uses a HAL, or Hardware Abstraction Layer. You don’t have to write code that flips some bit on the graphics card, instead you make a request to an API that goes through the HAL, which in turn calls a device driver, written by the vendor of that device, that ultimately flips that bit. While not all graphics cards will support every function, the drivers themselves will report what the graphics card is capable of, and will tell you the maximum version of DirectX it supports. The software developers have to then decide if they want to use some workaround for that specific implementation or if they just want to throw up an error dialog that informs the user that their hardware is no longer supported.

In Android, the hardware abstraction layer is the JVM implementation, Dalvik. Unless the developer wants to run native code on the device, the Android platform abstracts away all the low level details. If you need to do some low level work, it is exactly like Windows; you may write something that is incompatible with some device hardware.

I guess this is where the Android fragmentation debate comes from. It is possible to write code that doesn’t work on all devices. You don’t have the same problem on the iPhone or other iOS devices because Apple’s API limits what you can do on the device. Android gives developers freedom, and if they go outside the API, you have incompatible devices. If you stay inside the API, and code to current standards, you probably won’t have any problems.

Or, build your app to run on a 4s and expect it to run on earlier iOS devices. At some point consumers have to move on or be content with what is available. Older devices are still good devices, they just aren’t as shiny as newer devices on the market, and unless there is some compelling reason to use a newer SDK, compile your app to use the lowest SDK you can to reach the largest possible audience. Lot’s of apps I purchased for my ADP1 and ADP2 still run fine on my Nexus S. The same thing can’t be said for applications I bought for my Nexus S, they don’t all work on earlier devices, but that is when using a higher SDK is appropriate.

It was a serious stretch of hardware resources just to get Gingerbread on some devices. While there maybe community efforts to bring later versions of Android to some devices, it simply shouldn’t be brought to every device. As much as I loved my G1 when it came out, sometimes you just have to let it go… that said, there probably aren’t a lot of G1’s in that list.

When did the Verge talk about getting starts?

Wolf3D literally launched my career in the computer industry. As a bright and talented 15 year old kid, I walked into an Egghead Discount Software store and “sold” my dad on why we needed to buy the Windows 3.1 upgrade. The assistant manager of the store was so impressed that he asked me on the spot if I wanted a job.

When I turned 16, and with Summer approaching, I went back to the store with my application. During the interview with the store manager, other employees were across the room playing Wolf3D and I recognized the level they were in entirely from the sound effects and music I could hear. When the manager realized this, the job was essentially mine. Only later did I learn I had beaten several college graduates for the position.

I’ve been working in the computer industry ever since. While I’m sure I probably would have eventually worked on computers, and would likely be in the industry today, Wolf3D and arguably Windows 3.1, are easily the catalysts of my career and defining moments for me.

Back in the day, when mice had heavy trackballs in them, I ruined one or two mice playing Wolf3D. Doom fixed that problem, although moving from one input method, a mouse, a joystick, or a keyboard, to a system that really required you to use the mouse AND the keyboard was such a foreign concept. Seems very natural now, but before Doom, games just didn’t work that way.

Google’s Ngram Viewer shows a wider divide.

Google’s Ngram Viewer shows a wider divide.

Finally someone gets it. I’m sure that was intended as a sarcastic remark, but I fully agree with you that Apple’s success is a product of marketing and the network effect. In 2007, everyone was trying to leverage music as a way to grow their smartphone businesses. Apple gave the iPod Touch a cellular radio, and the rest has grown organically from that. Google produced a Smartphone to expose their services; Android is the result from that.

If you keep in mind that Apple is a Hardware company, first and foremost, then how the industry has progressed for the past 5 years makes perfect sense.

That really shouldn’t mater too much in this case. This is a service, so provided that you have a Samsung device, great, you can stream songs from your library. I guess if they have a purchase option, those might be tied up in the Samsung locker, but it sounds like you can use the locker for your own music without any restrictions.

If you then get a device that isn’t a Samsung, you will supposedly still have the source files. Otherwise, this sounds like any other streaming service, such as Zune, Rhapsody, Spotify, etc.

I have an Electronics Engineering Technology BS from Texas A&M. When I talk to people, it often becomes an EE degree, since that is what most people are more familiar with. That said, whenever I put it in writing, such as on my resume, I always put down that it is an ENTC BS, as that is how it is officially recognized by Texas A&M.

I wanted to give him the benefit of doubt. I wonder if he wrote his bios, or if someone wrote them on his behalf without his intervention. If so, it could have been that he didn’t intentionally misinform anyone, but maybe he just didn’t correct the mistakes, as I may not when someone starts saying I have an EE degree; the subtlety is lost on most people. The source article does a convincing job of demonstrating that this is likely intentional and not an unintentional mistake.

If he has been claiming otherwise in SEC filings or on his resume, I’d releave him of his duties and replace him with someone who has more integrity. Qualified or not, if he lied about his experience, what else do you need to question? The UCMJ (Uniformed Code of Military Justice) has strong penalties for adultery for the same reason. I’d argue this is a more egregious integrity violation than that of adultery, and I know of more than one high ranking military officer who has been demoted and stripped of duties for having an affair.

I’m surprised no one has compared this to mp3.com’s service that let you scan CD’s, and then match them with albums online, so you could stream them without ripping and encoding them yourself. That was done a decade ago, for free, until the RIAA forced them to take it down. I wonder if as a streaming service, this will suffer the same fate ultimately.

Sure, and if that’s the case then they shouldn’t say they are doing this for the consumers; they are doing it for their own gains. The UX argument is there just to obscure the real reason they have this provision in the first place.

Didn’t Gartner or ComScore just announce that in the US Apple has 37% of the Smartphone market, with Google at 51%? Android doesn’t restrict their market to the same extent that Apple does. I’d suggest that Apple is dangerously close to that line in the sand, and with between 1% and 2% growth, consistent with their current growth rates, they will possibly cross it in the next few months.

So are iOS features that allow you to make in-app purchases provided as a convenience factor to bolster sales, or is it Apple trying to secure another revenue stream? If I spend the development cycles to create my own cross-platform way to generate up sell leads, it makes no sense for me to develop and support a proprietary method that only works with one platform. Furthermore, if I’ve already invested in my cross-platform method, I’m sure as hell not going to spend additional resources on a proprietary method so I can share my profits.

This is just Apple greed at the center of this debate.

Well publicized rules don’t make them fair or justified. Apple is trying to rationalize their decision; they are using an argument that makes them seem a though they are making rules to benefit their customers, but they don’t make allowances for when a 3rd party application doesn’t give them a slice of their revenue stream. As the owner of an iOS device, I’d be furious with Apple. Apple doesn’t have customers interests at heart insomuch as they have their profits driving “innovation.” UX in this case is their justification, but not their real motivation.

Really, the Bible outlaws porn?

Laws are a product of society, and while society maybe strongly based on religious teachings, there isn’t a “law” against pornographic movies in the Bible. Furthermore, while there maybe Islamic laws that are derived straight from the Koran, there isn’t any recognized “Christian law” or “Bible law”.

The prefect comment for me this morning…

While the term is used to describe CGI rendering, I think it applies here too. Basically it just refers to how artificial things look. With CGI, the problem is that a CGI humanoid doesn’t move or look quite right. When you are looking at something unfamiliar, like the creatures in Avatar, or clearly animated like Up, you don’t notice the unnatural movement because you don’t have a natural point of reference to know that it looks “unnatural.” With 48fps media, it provides higher detail making the sets look more “unnatural,” because you can more closely see the seams. It is a subconscious observation telling you this isn’t how film should look.

For the same reason you wouldn’t go to a staged play and say it looks unnatural, but clearly the experience won’t look like how you currently think film looks.

There is quite a difference in terms of quality when you are interpolating; TVs with higher frame rates are trying to generate frames that don’t exist in the source media. I’d much rather it be shot at a higher rate, and then down sample. A film shot at 48fps, and then shown at 48fps will take some time before film makers have explored how to use the additional frames for best effect, but it will certainly be better than any if the up sample techniques. Even lowering the frame rate to 24fps for showing, with digital down sampling, should be a better film source, and should provide the audience with an experience they ate already used to.

I welcome the higher shooting rate, and I hope that this is a trend that continues.