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I see what you are saying. There is at least one artificial barrier on JSTOR however there are no other barriers that stop you from doing anything which I think is extremely stupid.

Anyway, yes there should be a larger discussion about accessing “illegal” data because if Google can index it that means people can easily click it in search results, how would they ever know it was confidential until after they accessed it.

Is the burden on the person opening the file to inherently know they should not have this information or is the burden on the person storing it.

For instance obviously social security numbers are in a distinct format that most people would recognize, but what about documents written in free form. You would have to read the entire document, understand it, and then be like wait a minute I shouldn’t have access to this.

This model is ridiculous to me as some proprietary company documents may be very long or very technical and people copying the file may not understand what they are disseminating.

If you go into my house and steal my PC, you don’t have to understand how to use the PC to know this is wrong.

about 6 hours ago on Telecom companies threaten to sue reporters for uncovering privacy breach with Google

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No this is where you are wrong. Writing words in a TOS is not any means of digital security. Swartz did not bypass any computer related security measures because non were in place to stop him from doing what he did. There was not a timeout between requests, there was no max number of articles you could download in a 24 hour period.

They are using the analogy of locked doors.

If you leave your doors unlocked it is NOT okay for someone to come in and remove your possessions. However this is where they are being short-sided. They are trying to apply the laws regarding physical objects to virtual objects.

Can I store confidential information on a server and plug it directly into the internet with no security and then complain and get people arrested when they are accessing it? Apparently yes. This is ridiculous and stupid.

Also there are regulations on how confidential information like this is stored and they are clearly breaking it, but no one cares because it is probably a FCC fine or less. If the individuals are apprehended and charged they will receive decades in prison and fines in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Does this make sense?

about 12 hours ago on Telecom companies threaten to sue reporters for uncovering privacy breach with Google 2 replies 1 recommend

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So DDR3 which is good enough for Intel’s newest i7 CPUs is an utter fail because it is connected to a video card and they abbreviate it with a “G” in the front?

The main difference between GDDR5 and GDDR3 is that 5 has 8-bit wide pre-fetch buffers. Yes it is true that GDDR5 is faster than GDDR3 by about double, however GDDR3 is 160 Gbit/s (which is just under 20 GB/s). 20 Gigabytes per second is not fast enough for you eh? What do you think will be the bottleneck in this system. The HDD at SATA3 which will probably read at about 100 MB/s if you are lucky or the media, which will read at probably 6x which means it will take about 20 minutes to read a full 120 minute disc or the internet, or everything? Because they are all orders of magnitudes slower than the RAM.

RAM is never the bottleneck in any system, it is always the HDD even in systems with SSDs.

2 days ago on With Xbox One and PlayStation 4, Microsoft and Sony rekindle the war for your TV 5 recommends

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Not really Apple doesn’t sell enough PCs to keep Intel in business. All the popular things they sell run off of ARM chips.

So they would spend 10’s of Billions of dollars buying a business and then immediately refuse to sell what that company makes to 95% of the market.

Intel doesn’t have IP worth it for that to happen.

6 days ago on Intel could have been inside the original iPhone, says outgoing CEO

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Who are the crooks? Apple or the Politicians? It’s not like the politicians are going get a raise for making Apple pay more taxes.

There are some serious loop-holes in the US tax code that should be fixed, because middle class people can’t really benefit from the loopholes so they turn out to favor the really rich and corporations which is unfair. If the US wants corporations to pay less taxes they should close the loopholes and lower the tax so it is more evenly enforced.

7 days ago on Tim Cook scheduled to testify to Senate about Apple's offshore tax practices 2 recommends

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So what time and effort did they put into the YouTube app for WP8? MS paid for it’s development and would end up supporting it.

Then they got all hot and bothered when MS released it without their consent, which makes sense. MS is hoping that now that they released it Google will cave and let it ride. It’s hard to un-ring a bell.

7 days ago on Larry Page to tech world: 'Being negative is not how we make progress'

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Gmail can use the new Skype IM protocol (formerly Windows Messenger). Plenty of third parties do in applications like Pidgin (free) and Trillian (free and paid).

The issue is that Google thinks having GChat in Gmail is a nice selling point and now that MS has done the same there is one less reason to stick to Gmail.

7 days ago on Larry Page to tech world: 'Being negative is not how we make progress'

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Doesn’t Facebook chat use XMPP now? I’d say that’s a billion reasons to stick to that protocol. In-fact FB has moved from completely proprietary to allowing any 3rd party app to access FB chat via XMPP.

Anyway, I doubt everyone will ever agree on a standard.

7 days ago on Pick your poison: messaging will be fragmented, expensive, or locked-in 1 reply 3 recommends

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Using underage children’s likenesses in advertisements based on “likes” of products. Apparently if you like stuff on Facebook sometimes it slaps your profile picture onto an ad endorsing the product to your friends. Anyway In many states you can not use the likeness (i.e. profile picture) of someone underage without parental consent.

Their is a class-action lawsuit where FB offered to pay 20 Million in damages and stop the behavior but the judge turned it down saying it was not enough. The case is on-going.

8 days ago on Microsoft responds to YouTube demands, 'more than happy' to include ads if Google allows it

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I agree with you that they have 30 million reasons to add support for it.

“Obviously they should round out their compatibility for those Insta users, […].”

However, I am just tried of people using it to try an invalidate the entire platform, when in realtity it isn’t even that popular yet. I think they should complain about other more popular apps first (as this affects more users), as well as learn to move on. If Instagram hasn’t created an app with the level of complaining going on right now, they are never going to.

I hope that Instagram (facebook) and MS have been working on the app and are currently testing it, like the rumors state. However it may never come.

9 days ago on Nokia sidesteps Instagram absence with Hipstamatic app and Smart Camera features (hands-on)

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Well if you plan on using them on tablets, yes they are very wrong. The issue is that Microsoft melded two interfaces in a way that you can not ignore the modern design language, even if you do not have a touch screen device. They did this very much on purpose so you have to use the new start menu. This obviously rubbed some people the wrong way.

I like ever other PC user hates learning new things but once you get used to the new start menu it’s fine. Also once you realize you can uninstall every single modern app (except the store) what really is the issue?

With 8.1 you will be able to boot directly to the desktop. So the only interaction you will have to have is the PC Settings applet. All the desktop apps you use can easily be pinned to the taskbar or with a dock or launcher of your choosing so you never have to go to the start screen ever.

Anyway once you uninstall all the modern apps it is essentially Windows 7 with a more graphical start menu.

9 days ago on Microsoft confirms Windows 8.1 as official name for 'Blue' update, free for Windows 8 users 1 reply

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“An entire generation” is meant to illustrate how vital this application is to young people. However it really isn’t. Asking if Windows Phone has Instagram has gotten to the point of asking “Does it run crisis”? It’s more a meme than reality.

Anyway, as I said above, the people that use Instagram think that everyone can’t live without it. I know plenty of young people that use it and plenty more that do not use it. It is trendy right now to use something other than Facebook, which makes sense, but the fact of the matter is over 1 Billion people use Facebook and only 30 million people use Instagram. As an example, Myspace (25 Million users) has almost as many active users as Instagram.

Instagram is not important, no matter how many anecdotal stories you have. Obviously they should round out their compatibility for those Insta users, but there are more important applications that need to come first.

9 days ago on Nokia sidesteps Instagram absence with Hipstamatic app and Smart Camera features (hands-on) 1 reply 2 recommends

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Cool story bro.

I think you are overestimating how popular Instagram is. Since when is a whole generation 30 Million people? There are 7.08 Billion people in the world and 311 Million in the US. It is only 10% of America’s population, and when you figure in the entire world it is insignificant.

So yes, I get it some people like Instgram, but it isn’t as many as you would think, there are much more popular apps that need to hit Windows Phone before Instagram.

10 days ago on Nokia sidesteps Instagram absence with Hipstamatic app and Smart Camera features (hands-on) 2 replies

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I agree WP8 can’t be that bad, it did win engadget’s reader choice award, and they are always reviewed very highly by customers everywhere like Amazon. Oh and also WP8 users are happier than Samsung and Apple users based on PC Mags Reader’s Choice Survey, so does having a huge store make for happy customers? Guess not.

10 days ago on Nokia's aluminum Lumia 925 is the best Windows Phone yet, but that's not enough (hands-on) 1 reply 14 recommends

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They did not hate each other, Microsoft bought a large stake in Apple in the 90’s, and released Office for Mac and IE for mac, when they were a sinking boat so they wouldn’t go out of business.

10 days ago on An emotional Bill Gates details his last visit with Steve Jobs 1 recommend

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I agree. I personally have used multiple, and do still use 1 or 2 Google services. I just think people should fully understand what information Google is collecting. If they do and are fine with it then there isn’t a problem.

I think the issue I have with Chrome OS is that they didn’t make it online only for the customers sake they really did it for themselves. I personally do not see a benefit on my end to being online only so I won’t use it.

I think people should use what they like and if you really like it I’d say stick with it. I think there could be some notable road blocks to using it full time, but if the system catches on application and support in general will fill in. Right now Chrome OS is lacking many, many features and it will take a long time to match or beat Windows or MacOSX in the features department.

14 days ago on New Sony Windows 8 convertible revealed, shows off slim design in leaked video

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On PCs with Intel Graphics if you hit Ctr + Alt + Down Arrow it will turn the display up-side down. Do the same thing with up arrow to set it back.

If you disable “Hot Key Functionality” in your Intel Gfx driver config you can stop people from doing this to you!

14 days ago on Windows chief hints at Start button return in Windows 8.1, says it 'might be helpful' for some 1 recommend

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The problem they are solving is theirs, not yours. They wanted an OS with deep integration of their services that did not rely on one of their competitors.

They make money by providing advertising based on usage of free services. If you buy a chrome book you will probably use the built in services, and it being “always-on” allows them access to this information almost instantly.

14 days ago on New Sony Windows 8 convertible revealed, shows off slim design in leaked video 1 reply

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True but it still isn’t that thick. It looks about as thin as it could be to still support a full size USB port on the back.

I can’t tell if they tapered the edges to make it look thin, or to make it fit in your hand really well.

14 days ago on New Sony Windows 8 convertible revealed, shows off slim design in leaked video 3 recommends

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What big trends did they miss exactly? They released tablets, smartphones, and smart watches before anyone even wanted them. I’d say they were to ahead of the curve actually. Then when no one bought these products they let them linger in the market place for years, and then you stumbled across them and though they were outdated garbage, even though they were designed a decade ago.

The only thing they were late on was Xbox and Zune, Xbox now being the market leader and Zune being dead and rolled into Windows Phone.

Anyway more times then not they were on top of or ahead of the curve, the issue is that since these products didn’t sell well due to their design decisions means they let them languish.

Just because you didn’t like Windows Mobile phones, and XP touchscreen tablets doesn’t mean they didn’t exist.

25 days ago on Does anyone know why Google bought Motorola? 2 replies 2 recommends